
',•' '^^ua•»''^■r,^i'• 







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THE 



AMERICAN 



1S%^ 



P R T Pi i IT CI A L L E Pi Y : 



CONTAINING 



CORRECT rORTRAITS AND BRIEF NOTICES 



HE PRINCIPAL ACTORS IN AMERICAN HISTORY; 

E M B R A ^ I X G 

DISTINGUISHED WOMEN, NAVAL AND MILITARY HEROES, STATESMEN, CIVILIANS, 

JURISTS, DIVINES, AUTHORS, AND ARTISTS; TOGETHER WITH 

CELEBRATED INDIAN CHIEFS. 

FROM CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME. 



THE PORTRAITS ENGRAVED OX WOOD CY J. W. ORR, 



FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY S. WALLIN, 



.r 



BY A. D.' JONES. 




NEW YORK: 
J. M. EMERSON AND COMPANY 



M D C C C L V. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in tlie year Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-five, 

BY J. ^l. EMERSON AND COMPANY, 

In the Clerk's Office of tlie District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York 



C. A. ALV O RD, 

PRINTER, 

29 & 81 Gold Street 



CONTENTS. 



PAOE 

Aeldancl, Harriet 435 

Adams, Alviu IIV 

Adams, Hannah 379 

Adams, John 59 

Adams, John Q 119 

Adams, Mrs. John 71 

Adams, Samuel 53 

Afijassiz, Louis 569 

AUston, Washiagtou 195 

Ames, Fisher 81 

Andre, John 89 

Appleton, Samuel 683 

Arnold, Benedict 85 

Ashmun, George 677 

Atherton, Charles G 765 

Audubon, John James 521 

Bache, Mrs. Sarah 461 

Baiubridge, William 128 

Ballou, Hosea 723 

Baltimore 281 

Baird, Robert 151 

Barber, Francis 415 

Barlow, Joel 431 

Barnes, Albert 679 

Baiuard, U. D 171 

Bauey, J 497 

Barry, John 481 

Bayard, J. A 159 

Beck, Theodorick Rimyu. . . . 5S9 

Boeclier, Lyman 639 

Beecher, Henry Ward 691 

Belknap, Jeremy 38',) 

Black Hawk 573 

Blakely, Johnston 465 

Biddle, James 557 

Biddle, Nicholas 487 

Boone, Daniel 91 

Boudinot, Elias 467 

Bowditeh, Dr 527 

Broadstreet, Simon 327 

Brandt 357 

Bridgman, Laura 707 

Briggs, George N 627 

Brooks, John 107 

Brown, Charles Broekden 701 

Brown, Jacob 605 

Bryant, W. C 103 

Buel, Jesse 559 

Burgoyne, John - 99 

Burke, Edmon 1 503 

Burr, Aaron 349 

Burritt, Elihu 191 

Byles, Mather 413 

Cabot, Sebastian 13 

Calhoun, J. C 129 



PAGE 

Camden, Earl of 321 

Carey, Henry C 699 

Carleton, Guy 401 

Carroll, Charles ^.^S- S3& 

Cass, Lewis 181 

Channing, W. E 143 

Chapin, E. H 565 

Chickering, Jonas 721 

Choate, Rufus 173 

Choules, John 761 

Church, Benjamin 295 

Claxton, Alexander 161 

Clay, Hemy 211 

Clay, Cassius M 575 

Clinton, De Witt 147 

Clinton, James 485 

Collamer, Jacob 757 

Colden, Calwallader 305 

Cole, Thomas 745 

Colman, Benjamin 303 

Colton, Walter 729 

Columbus, Christojilier 9 

Cooper, J. F 205 

Cornwallis 347 

Corwiu, Thomas 529 

Crittenden, John J 511 

Crocket, David 567 

Croghan, Lieut. Col 755 

Cushman, Miss Charlotte .... 617 

Dale, Richard 4-t3 

Dallas, George M 661 

Davenport, John 283 

Davie, Wni. R 387 

Davis, John 591 

Dayton, William L 725 

Decatur, Stephen 185 

D'Estaiug 381 

De Soto,>erdinand 279 

De Wees, W. P 183 

Dewey, Orville 547 

DickiQson, John 399 

Dickinson, M 629 

Doane, A. S 651 

D'Ossoli, Marchioness 675 

Drake, Francis 275 

Dubia, John P 583 

Dumas, Count 423 

Dwight, Timothy 705 

Edwards, Jonathan 339 

Ellet, Mrs. Elizabeth F 537 

Elliot, J. D 665 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo 543 

Endicott, John 27 

Ericsson, John 561 

Evans, G 671 



PAGE 

Everett, Edward 687 

Ewing, Charles 525 

Farley, Harriet 585 

Fairfield, John 597 

Fanning, Edmund 457 

Farrar, Timothy 455 

Ferdinand , . . . 269 

Fillmore, Millard 697 

Franklin, Benjamin 43 

Franklin, Mrs 345 

Frelinghuvsen, Theodore "113 

Fremont, J. C 149 

Frobisher, Mavt"u 37 

Fulton, Robert 121 

Gaines, E. P 681 

Gallatin, Albc.t 135 

Gaston, William G07 

Gates, Horatio 451 

George III 331 

Gerry, Elbridge 462 

Goodyear, Charles 739 

Graham, W. A 601 

Greeley, Horace 735 

Greene, Major General 337 

Greenough, Horatio 619 

Greenwood, Grace 659 

Grundy, Felix 647 

Hale, Mrs. S. J 689 

Haliburton, J 209 

Hamilton, Alexander 51 

Hamilton, Mrs. A 335 

Hancock, John 55 

Harrison, Wra. H 157 

Hayne, Robert Y 189 

Hendrick 317 

Henrv, Patrick 61 

Hicks, Elias 727 

Hilliard, H. W 613 

Hopkins, Samuel 369 

Hopkinson, F 355 

Hosack, David 635 

Houston, Samuel 523 

Howe, Lord 333 

Howard, John Eagar 489 

Hudson, Hendrick 287 

Hughes, f John 581 

Hull, Isaac 655 

Humphreys, David 433 

Hutchinson, Thomas 57 

Inman, Henry 201 

Irving, W 167 

Isabella 271 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

395 



•;a*-. f^r IJl ! K^^SJiVt: ::: •.;::■.:;: : u. 

Jackson, James, ^-'^ i ^ 

Jay, John 
Jo'fforsou, 
Johnson, WiUiaia 



03 



'.09 



Tlwrnas ■■■.■..■; *. ". • . 45 Oglethorpe, James -"•' 

^"°™^^ 31l|0gden, Aaron 4io 



, , . T. ,1 S 641 Olia, Stephen . 

Johnston, Josiah b "J f. ' | ^ 

Jones, John Paul 103 , Usceoia 

Judson, Adoniram 

Judson, A. H 

Judson, E. C 



657 Outacite. 

175 

177 I Parsons, Enoch. 

Peun, William 
5191 Perry, O. H. 

p ' ' [ ^ 711 Peters, Hugh. 

203 Petalesharro . 

01 Physic, P. S. 



PAGE 

555 



759 
127 
421 

493 
33 
145 
285 
621 



Spurzheim o^.o 

Stark, Gen ^^l 

St. Clair, Arthur 

Steuben, Baron 

Stewart, Charles 

Stiles, Ezra 

Story, Joseph 

Strong, Caleb 

Stuart, C. G 

Stuy vesaut, Petrus 

Suliivan, John 

Sullivan, William 



386 
371 
747 
315 
141 
511 
101 
293 
393 
625 



Talmadge, Benjamin . 



ov Henrv 1 1 3 U ei ce, r i auiMn > Townsend, 

°^' ^"-"'I; , , ■ fiT Perce. Bern amm ^^' .i, , ,, 



483 

1 37 I Taylor. Zachary 139 

137 Tecumsch ^ ^^ 

het •'>«3 

673 

Charles 459 

599 1 Trumbull, John 3 1 3 



Keokuck 

Kennedy, John 

Kent, James . . 

King PhilUp 

Kin 

Kirkl 

Knox, ticurv. . . --^ i p- „ tDq^; 

Kosciusko, Thaddeus ^l p ^e z M , 

47 ?inkney William ^ ^ Truxton, Thoma. 

L^f^yette 4^Ptt, William 375 Tyng^ 

^^-^•^^'^^"'■^ :^^d.Wnnt.J.H ^^^ Van Buren, Martin 103 

693 Van Rensselaer, Stephen 69o 

703 'Vane, Henry 
733 I Van Ness, M.arcia 
539 
737 



Laurence, James ^'^■* 

Lawrence, Abbott 5ol 

Lee, Charles 

Lee, Henry 

Lee, Richard Henry 

Legare, H. S 

Le verett, John 

Lewis, Morgan 

Linn, Lewis F 

Lincoln, Benjamin 

Livingston, Edward 

Longfellow, H. W 



367 
109 
417 
563 
291 
407 
C67 
79 
633 
535 



Pleasants 

Pocahontas .... 

Poinsett, Joel R. 

Porter, David. . 

Porter, P. B. . . . 

Post, Wright. . . 

Powers, Hiram. ^ 

Preble, Edward -^^.j 

Prescott, William H '^3 

Putnam, Israel ' ■> 



715 

579 
507' 
509 
359 

97 
731 

35 



Quincy, Josiah . . 

Raleigh, W.altcr 
Ramsay, David. 
Randolph, J. . 



587 



Vespucius, Amcricus. 
Verrazzano 



469 
753- 



125 
11 

273 



Lowell, Charles . 

Macomb, Alexander 
Madison, James . . . 

Madison, Mrs 

Marion. Francis . . . 

Marshall, C. J 

Mason, Lowell. . . . 

Mather, Cotton ^ 

Mather, Increase 3.3 Ripley, Major General. 

Mayhew Jona han 3.o P 7 j^j,^ ^„,, c. M. 

Mcintosh, L'^eh m 4 .^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^-.^ 

McDonough, Thomas ^> \ ^-^-^^ ^^^^^ j^^es 

McLane, Lou:s < 1 1 ^^ o . 

Middleton, Arthur 

Miller, James 

Mitchell, Samuel Lathram 

Monroe, James 

Montgomery, Richard J '^ 

Morris, Goiiverneur 

Morse, S. F. B 

Morgan, Daniel. . . . 

Mott, Valentine 

Motte, Rebecca 

]Moultrie, William 



Ware, Henry 

Ware, Mary L 

Warren, Josejih 

Warren, Mrs. Iklary . 

Warren, John 

Wariington, L 

Washington, George. 
Washington, Martha 



Randolph^Peyton ^^-^ , ^^,^^^^;„gton, William. 

Rantoul, Robert, Jr ^ ^ J; ^l => ^ „,i,^„.. 

Rawson, Edward . 
Rawson, Rebecca. 

Red Jacket 

Reed, Esther 

Reed, Joseph 



4391 Rochambeau. 
685 Rush, Benjamin 

577 Rumford, Count. 
515 Rutledge, Edwi 



289 
29 
1.87 
361 
363 
749 
743 

69 
501 
341 

93 



643 

645 

49 

453 

751 

595 

41 

65 

491 

83 

767 

, 133 

, 87 

. 403 



]91 



Wayne, Anthon 
Webster, Daniel . . 
Webster, Noah.. . 
West, Benjamin. . 
Wheatley, Phillis. 

Wilkes, John ^(U 

- -- " 719 

473 
471 
19 
441 
353 
313 
17 



32.', 
513 
105 
1 



Muhleubn 
Murray 



rgh, Peter 4(i51 Sharp 



653 1 Santa Anna 

95 Schuyler, Philip 

553 Scott, Winfield _• • • • • 

_,7 Sedgwick, Miss Catharine M. . ^ ^^^^^^ 
419 SewcU, Samuel -■'■11 ,„ ,; t 



Willard, Mrs. Emma 

Willett, Mannus. . 

Williams, O. H. . • 

Winslow, Edward 

White, William . . 

Whitfield, George, 

Winthrop, John . . 

Winslow, Josiah. . . ^ 

Winslow, Penelope ^^ 

Winthrop, John.. 
Winthrop. R. C. . 
Wirt, William.. . 



603 Wistar, Carpar. 



207 
631 
615 



Rev. Dr. 



517 Woodbury, Levi. 



riiXn. 479 Shelby,] 

t:„.ii„^ 199 Shippen, 



Isaac 4 

Edward . 



Murray, Lindley ^ ""' I sigourney, Mrs. Lydia H.. 

^^ ,, ,, ,., 549 SiUiman, Benjamin 

Nea. Muthla . ^^ :^ g^^^^^^l 

Newell, Harriet 4 47 ^^, ^^^^^ 

!\rir\irp,'f>r _ • 



Ninigret. 



Wool, J. E 

3l3|Woostcr, David . 

15 Worth, W. J 

651 Wright, William 

6631 
15 i Zinzcndorf. 



169 
197 
411 
531 

709 

319 



VOLUME I. 



PART I. 



EMBRACING THE PERIOD FROM THE 



DISCOVERY BY COLUMBUS, 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 



i 



I 



PREFACE. 



Lord Bacon expressed his regret that the lives of eminent men were 
not more frequently written ; and added that, "though kings, princes, 
and great personages be few, yet there are many excellent men who 
deserve better than vague reports and barren elegies." And one of our 
own poets has beautifully said, 

" Lives of great men all remind us 

We may make our lives sublime, — 
And, departing, leave behind us 
Footprints on the sands of time, 

"Footprints, that perhaps another — 
Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother. 
Seeing, may take heart again." 

The " footprints" of nearly three hundred and fifty individuals of dis- 
tinction and eminence are collected in this volume. And not only their 
footprints, tracking their pathway through life, but their very faces^ 
preserved through the magic power of the pencil, and conveying to- 
posterity the varying expression of features in "the human form divine." 
Nearly all of these three hundred and fifty individuals have lived in the 
last three centuries, and more than three hundred of them in our own 
country. The great majority of them have completed tlieir voyage 
across "life's solemn main," and entered that country "from, whose 
bourne no traveler returns ;" while some fifty or sixty of the number 



Iv PIIEFACE. 

are still on the stage of life, holding- various positions of distinction 
among their fellow-men. 

Wordsworth has said, speaking of man in his individuality, 

" The child is father of the man." 

The remark may with equal propriety be applied to the race collect- 
ively ; for the welfare, character, and future progress of the race are 
always shaped and measured by the experience and history of the past. 
It is universally conceded that biography is the most instructive, as well 
as the most pleasing department of history. The biographical sketches, 
in this volume, have been prepared with care by a competent and con- 
scientious writer, from the best materials and sources within his reach. 
And great pains have been taken to obtain the best likenesses of the 
oriirinals, from which to eno-rave the portraits. It is believed therefore 
that few works combine, in a more eminent degree than this, the two 
grand elements requisite to make a valuable book, viz., the useful and the 
attractive, the utile ctim dulce of the Romans. 

Being well aware that the useful and attractive character of the 
volume would insure for it a very great demand, the publishers have 
provided, in a liberal manner, for the best materials and elegant mechan- 
ical execution of the work, and at the same time have placed it at such 
a moderate price as to bring it within the reach of every family and 
every school library in the land. 




CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

FEW men have led a life of such wild and glorious adventure as the subject of this 
brief memoir ; and none have exceeded him in the exhibition of those manly 
virtues which command the admiration of the world, — energy, perseverance, patience, 
and the power of endurance. Of obscure parentage, without money or influential 
friends, he compelled wealth to be his servant, and kings to do homage to his genius. 
Obstacles hopelessly insurmountable to others, only stimulated his energy, and he 
perceived the guaranty of success when all around him saw only despair. "With an 
unfaltering faith and indomitable will, he fulfilled the prophecy of his soul, and 
wreathed his brow with laurels which will only grow fresher and greener as time 
advances. 

Christopher Columbus was born at Genoa, as is generally conceded, about A. D. 
1435-36. But little is known of his early life, save that he was remarkable for his 
love of such studies as peculiarly fitted him for a maritime life, and those great 
adventures of which Providence made him the principal agent and moving spirit. 

He commenced his maritime career while yet a mere youth, his first voyage being 
a naval expedition fitted out at Genoa in 1459, by John of Anjou, Duke of Calabria, 
the object of which was to recover the kinojdom of" Naples for his father, Rene, Count 
de Provence. 



10 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

For many years after this, the traces of his career are faint, although it is evident 
that his life passed in a succession of naval or other maritime pursuits. His sagacious 
mind led him to believe that other lands lay far oflf towards the setting sun, and he 
resolved to convince the world that his views were correct. Poor and friendless as 
he was, he conceived the bold idea which led to the discovery of the Western Conti- 
nent. Full of this purpose, he sought the aid of powerful courts, first applying to the 
throne of Portugal, and then to that of Spain. But here he was destined to encounter 
the fiercest opposition, and it was not until after many years of struggle and disap- 
pointment that he succeeded in securing the patronage of Ferdinand and Isabella, 
who fitted him out with a squadron of three small vessels, carrying in all one hundred 
and twenty persons, among whom were various private adventurers. With this little 
fleet, and full of hope and the solemn purpose he had so long and ardently cherished, 
he set sail from Huelva on the 3d of August, 1492. 

After a long and perilous voyage, in which the terrors of the Atlantic were among 
the smallest difficulties he had to encounter, — his officers, crews, and passengers in 
almost constant fear and mutiny, — his heart was made glad, and the fears of all 
dissipated, by the joyous cry of " Lancl^ ho ! " on the morning of the 12th of October, 
1492. 

Columbus speedily landed, and took solemn possession in the name of their 
Catholic majesties, amidst a wondering crowd of naked savages, who received him 
with simple sincerity, little dreaming of the strange and sad results which were to 
grow out of the pageant that filled their dazzled eyes. 

After refreshing and resting his worn-out band, he cruised among the islands (to 
which he gave the general name of West Indies) for several months, and then, on the 
4th of January, set sail on his return to Spain. His return was hailed as a triumph. 
and he was treated with all the pomp and ceremony of a mighty conqueror. 

He soon sailed, with a larger and better provisioned argosy, to the New World, 
bearing the titles, prerogatives, and honors of admiral, viceroy, and governor of all 
the countries he had discovered or might discover, and with unlimited powers to 
make and administer laws, form governments, erect cities, &c. He reached the 
place of his destination after a pleasant voyage, and immediately began to carry into 
execution the plans he had so long and so fondly cherished. But the star of Colum- 
bus had passed its zenith. He had talcen with him the seeds of faction, which 
speedily germinated and ripened into bitter fruit. Intrigues at court, and treachery 
in his own quarters, made his lot one of continual strife and discomfort, and he at 
length returned to Spain rather as a prisoner to answer for misdemeanors than as a 
conqueror to reap new honors. 

Still again do we find him making a voyage to the New World, only to be received 
suspiciously and treated with contumely ; and, after a futile effort to regain his 
wonted sway, he again sought redress at the foot of the throne. But alas I his 
guardian angel, the gentle Isabella, " had gone into glory," and Ferdinand was 
guilty of the meanest duplicity and most accursed ingratitude. Still professing 
friendship for the great man who had given him a continent, he put him off, day 
after day, with false promises and cruel evasions, until the old mariner, disgusted 
and broken-hearted, found a refuge in the grave, and carried up his cause to the 
court of heaven. ' I'^^o-"^' 




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS. 

4 LTHOUGH our country bears the nanne of this gentleman, it is pretty gen- 
A erally conceded that the honor belongs to Columbus, -'»;.- '"'f;'^* 
discoverer' It is claimed, and with a good degree of just.ce, hat both he Norse 
men and the Cabots of England saw the continent prior either to Columbus o 
Vespucius, yet the first occupation of the country is due to Col"™"-, and H 
should ha;e been called Col^b,., instead of Amer.ca But it .s too late now 
to hope for a change; and since it is so, we are glad that so euphon.ous a name 
distinsruishes the western continent. . -p, 

A„L,c„s VESPUc,„s_more properly AMcrigo respucc,-J.s ^0™ - Florence 
in 1451. He descended from a very ancient house, and belonged to one of the 
proudest families of that celebrated city. His education -- '"P^ ^'''^'/^f .^^ 
was possessed of a bold and enterprising spirit. F.rcd wrth *e a ju, ts of the 
discoveries of Columbus, he became desirous to see the New World ^ — • 
and accordingly, on the 20th of May, 1497, he sa.led from Cad.z, - » ™;-'^;"'; 
with a squadron of four small ships, under command of the ^'^rat d and vaUa^t 
Ojeda. During this voyage, Amerieus claims to have seen the contmcnt He 
may have done so, but much doubt envelops the matter. At all events, h,. 



12 AMERICUSVESPUCIUS. 

success was such as to induce Ferdinand and Isabella to place a fleet of six ships 
under his command, when he made his second voyage. On his return, in 1500, 
he received the same ungracious treatment from the contemptible Ferdinand which 
had been visited on Columbus ; and he returned to Seville mortified and disgusted 
at the ingratitude of princes. 

A rank and growing jealousy existed in all the courts of Europe of the glory 
and wealth achieved by Spain in her new discoveries. Emanuel, King of Portugal, 
hearing of the humiliation of Vespucci, invited him to his court, and offered. to 
fit out a fleet of three ships, and give him the command. Gladly accepting the 
proposal of the Portuguese king, he sailed from Lisbon in May, 1501, and exploivd 
the coast of South America from Brazil to Patagonia, and returned, laden with 
riches and honors, to Lisbon, in September, 1502. 

Emanuel was so greatly pleased with the results of this first voyage of discovery, 
that he placed six larger vessels at the disposal of Vespucci, and he again set sail 
on his fourth and last voyage, in May, 1503. The great object of this voyage was 
to discover a western passage to the Molucca Islands. Falling short of provisions, 
he was foiled in the attempt, and after visiting Brazil, and loading his ships w^ith 
the valuable wood of that country, and other precious products, he returned to 
Portugal, after an absence of but little more than a year. The rich cargoes he 
brought home partially compensated for the want of success in the main purpose 
of the voyage, and Americus was received with every demonstration of joy and 
respect. 

Vespucci now retired from the busy scenes of life, and devoted himself to the 
preparation of a history of his adventures, and to the performance of duties 
growing out of the office of chief pilot to Spain, to which he had been appointed by 
Ferdinand. His duties were the drawing and correcting of sea charts. He drew 
and published the first chart of the American coast, in which he laid claim to be 
the discoverer of the country. 

In 1507, he published his history of all the voyages he had made to America, 
and his work was read all over Europe with great delight. It was filled with 
most glowing accounts of the New World, mixed up with the most splendid 
fictions, superlatively elaborated sentences and apocryphal events. It was pub- 
lished just after the death of Columbus, and was thus placed beyond the reach 
of that eminent navigator, who, had he lived, would doubtless have exposed the 
pretensions of its author. 

He lived but a few years after this, and died at Tercera, in the sixty-third year 
of his age, in 1514. 




SEBASTIAN CABOT. 



JOHN CABOT, the father of Sebastian, of whom we have no portrait, was a 
Venetian by birth, but a resident of England at the time of the birth of the 
subject of this memoir. Under the patronage of King Henry VH. he sailed on a 
voyage of discovery in 1497, accompanied by his son Sebastian, then only twenty 
years of age. The elder Cabot had three sons, whom he educated especially as 
navigators. Sebastian was the second son. In this voyage the continent is said to 
have been seen for the first time, and was explored from the sixty-seventh degree of 
latitude to Florida. 

Sebastian Cabot was born at Bristol, England, in 1476-7. As we have seen, he 
accompanied his father on his first voyage in 1499. He sailed again under commis- 
sion from the court of England, in 1517. His object, like that of Vespucius, was to 
discover a new passage to the East Indies. In this he was disappointed, and re- 
turned to England without having added to the amount of knowledge obtained on 
the former voyage. 

In 1525, Ferdinand and Isabella, of Spain, invited him to court, showed him many 
flattering attentions, and put a fleet under his command, which sailed in April of the 
same year. He visited the coast of Brazil, and entered a great river, to which he 
gave the name of Rio de la Plata, running up its course between three and four hun- 



1-i SEBASTIAN CABOT. 

dred miles. He consumed six years in this voyage, and made many valnab.e addi- 
tions to the geography and natural history of the country. On his return to Spain 
in 1531, he experienced, like all others who shared the patronage of that court, the 
fickleness and perfidy of the weak and vacillating Ferdinand. 

Cabot made several other voyages, of which we have no veritable records, and at 
length retired to Seville, holding the commission of chief pilot to the court of Spain. 
In this capacity he drew many valuable charts, in which he delineated not only his 
own, but all others' discoveries. It fell to him, also, to draw up the instructions of 
those who sailed on new voyages of discovery, some of which are still extant, and 
exhibit an unusual sagacity in their conception, and a remarkable perspicacity in 
their execution. 

In his old age he returned to England, and resided once more at Bristol, the place 
of his birth, supported by a pension from King Edward VI. He was also appointed 
governor of a company of merchants, associated for the pm-pose of making voyages 
of discovery to unknown lands — an office for which his vast experience and knowl- 
edge eminently fitted him. Perhaps no man of his age did more to give an impulse 
to the commerce of England than Cabot. He was the founder of the " Russian 
Company," and the projector of several commercial enterprises, from which England 
derived no inconsiderable importance. He cherished the belief that a north-east pas- 
sage to China might yet be found, and died in the faith. 

The last account we can find of him is the relation of a pleasing and characteristic 
incident, which occurred in 1556, about a year previous to his death. The company 
had fitted out a vessel, which was just ready to sail on a voyage of discovery ; and, 
as was his custom, he visited the ship in person to see if every thing was in accord- 
ance with his instructions. He mingled freely with the seamen and passengers, 
having a cheerful word for each, and a smile and benediction for all. " The good 
old man Cabota," says the journal of the voyage, still extant, " gave to the poor most 
liberal alms, wishing them to pray for the good fortune and prosperous success of 
our pinnace. And then, at the sign of St. Christopher, he and his friends being 
rested, and for very joy, that he had seen the towardness of our intended discovery, 
he entered into the dance himself among the rest of the young and lusty company; 
which being ended, he and his friends departed, most gently commending us to the 
governance of Almighty God." It is a pleasant picture of the greenness and fresh- 
ness of his soul, although cumbered with the decaying tenement in which it had 
been enclosed for nearly eighty years. 

Cabot lived but a year after this event, and died at Bristol, in 1557, aged eighty 
years. He was a most remarkable man. Sagacious, methodical, thorough, and 
persevering, he was just the man for his office, whether he trod the quarter deck of 
his vessels, or presided at the board of commerce and navigation, of which he was 
governor for so many years. He is said to have been a mild and gentle person in 
all his relations on shore, although he was a rigid and even severe disciplinarian at 
sea ; and there are some intimations that he was even cruel in his treatment of 
offenders against the regulations of his squadrons. He is supposed to have been the 
first navigator who noticed the variations of the magnetic needle, and he published a 
work in Venice, in 1533, on the subject. He also published a large map, which was 
engraved by Clement Adams, and placed in the King's Gallery, at Whitehall. On 
this map was inscribed, in Latin, an account of the discovery of Newfoundland. 




CATTAIN JOHN SMITH. 



IN April, 1607, there arrived on the coast of Virginia a fleet of three small vessels, 
whose joint tonnage amounted to less than two hundred tons, containing a colo- 
ny, whose master spirit was the hero of this notice, Captain John Saiith. Thrice 
had the attempt been made to plant a colony on the shores of Virginia, and thrice 
had it failed. This time they were more successful. They located themselves on the 
left bank of the James River, about fifty miles from its mouth, and called the place, 
after the English monarch, Jamestoivn. The most discordant elements were mixed 
up in the little company that was destined to be the germ of Virginia's future 
greatness ; and had it not been for the sagacity and wisdom of Smith, they had, 
like those who went before them, perished within a twelvemonth. But his genius 
and courage were equal to the emergency. When provisions could not be purchased 
of the Indians, he seized their idols, and compelled the savages to redeem them with 
corn ; and by his severe example and discipline he kept the turbulent spirits of liie 
little colony in subjection. The savages regarded him with awe and hatred; now 
compassing his life by every ingenious artifice, and now reverencing him as a god. 
While on an exploring expedition, he was taken prisoner, after having slain three oi 



16 JOHN SMITH. 

his fot\s with his own hand. He was carried before Powhatan, and for some time 
was feasted, and fantastically dressed and carried about as a show. At length, in 
solemn council, he was condemned to death, and preparations were made to carry the 
sentence into inuuediate execution. His head was laid on a stone, and a stalwart 
Indian stood ready, with a war club, to dash out his brains. Just as the blow was 
about to descend, Pucahontas, the favorite daughter of Powhatan, threw herself upon 
the victim, and shielded his head in her own bosom. Her entreaties prevailed, and 
he was liljerated and sent back to Jamestown, in rude and savage triumph. 

Here the good sense and courage of Smith prevented the breaking up of the col- 
ony. Early in the seventeenth century, he was very seriously injured by the prema- 
ture explosion of his powder flask while on one of his exploring rambles, in conse- 
quence of which he returned to England for medical advice. He never recovered 
from the effects of this disaster, and after various adventures he died in London, in 
1631, in the tifty-second year of his age. 

Few men have exhibited such a love for the romance of life, and few have been 
more gratified in this respect, than the brave and gallant Captain John Smith. He 
exhibited this trait in early childhood, engaging in the most reckless and dangerous 
exploits. At thirteen, he sold his school books and satchel to raise money to run 
away, it being his purpose to go to sea. At fifteen, he left his master and went into 
France and the Low Countries. At seventeen, having acquired a little money, he 
embarked once more to carve out his own fortune, in company with some pilgrims 
bound for Italy. A violent tempest assailing the ship. Smith, who was deemed the 
cause of the misfortune, — he being the only heretic on board, — wa^ thrown over- 
l>oard, and saved his life by swimming to the shore. After this, he entered the ser- 
\ ice of Austria, and sowon the confidence of the emperor as to be intrusted with an 
important command. At the siege of Regal, he accepted the challenge of a Turkish 
lord, and smote off his head, fighting on horseback. A second, and a third, shared 
the same fate. He was finally taken prisoner, and escaped by slaying his master; 
and, after visiting Russia, he returned to England, and immediately turyed his atten- 
tion to the colonization of North America. 

Smith published several volumes of his voyages and adventures in America, as 
well as a map of the whole coast from the Penobscot to the James Rivers, giving both 
the Indian and the Engli^h names of the principal places. 




GOVERNOR JOSIAH WINSLOW. 



JOSIAH. WINSLOW was the first New England born governor. Hitherto that 
office had been filled by men whose birthplace was abroad. Now they had 
begun to raise their own officers and magistrates ; and this first American production 
was an honor to the new world and to his colony. Marshfield claims the honor of his 
birthplace, and he was born in 1629, just nine years after the arrival of the Pilgrims. 
He was the son of Edward Winslow, one of the company which came over in the 
Mayflower, the third governor of Plymouth colony. 

Josiah Winslow was born of brave stock, of which he proved to be no degenerate 
scion. He was a man of proper person, charming address, a well cultivated mind, 
and an amiable disposition. These traits, added to his fearless courage and military 
bearing, all resting on a highly refined piety for their base, eminently fitted him for 
the then highly important office of governor, and gave him great popularity. His first 
public act, after he was chosen governor, was the restoration to their civil rights of 
Isaac Robinson, son of Rev. John Robinson, and Mr. Cudworth, of which they had 
been deprived on account of their religious opinions. King Philip's war was coinci- 
dent with his administration, in which war he did eminent service, and proved him- 



IS J O S I A H W I N S L O \V 

self a sagacious leader and a brave warrior. He was mild and tolerant himself, and 
could not endure the persecutions which were pursued against nonconformists, of 
whatever name. His moral was fully equal to his physical courage. He encoun- 
tered public prejudice with the same unblenching resolution that he exposed himself 
to the bullets and ambushes of the Indians. 

He commenced his public life very early. No sooner had he arrived at the age 
eligible to office, than he was chosen deputy to the General Court from his native 
town ; and from that period to his election as governor, he was constantly employed 
in public business. In 1637, soon after the death of his father, he was elected to the 
office of commander-in-chief of the military forces of the colony. For many years he 
was one of the commissioners of the confederated colonies. He was of the number 
" born to honors," and they crowned his whole life. Of highly polished manners, 
greatly gifted in conversation, fond of society, and blessed withal with the means to 
gratify himself in all these respects, the social and festive scenes of "Careswell" 
were of the most delightful, refined, and instructive kind. Here, with his beautiful 
wife presiding, he won for himself the proud distinction of being " the most accom- 
plished gentleman and the most delightful companion in all New England." 

He married the daughter of Herbert Pelham, Esq., who early took a deep interest 
in the New England colonies. In 1637 he came over to America, but returned again 
to England after a short sojourn. 

Governor Winslow never enjoyed very robust health, and his exposures and hard- 
ships in Philip's war, in which he rendered most important service, exhibiting the 
stern qualities of a soldier, combined with the shrewdness and circumspection of 
a diplomatist, doubtless aggravated his disease and accelerated his death, which took 
place on the 18th of December, 1680, in the fifty-second year of his age. 

Although he died in the prime of life, he departed full of honors, carrying with 
him the love and respect of the entire colony, and of a numerous circle of friends 
both in the old world and the new 




EDWAUD WINSLOW. 



BY a wise economy in the moral realm, all great exigeiifies in the woilj 
produce those master spirits which are necessary to guide and regulate i;i Mn. 
The golden dreams which the discovery of the New World by Columbus' had 
produced throughout Europe had long been dissipated by the stern truth. In 
England, all that was sterile and bleak was associated with New England, and 
nothing was found there to tempt cupidity or promise fame. For many years 
would the Indians of Massachusetts Bay have remained in undisturbed possession 
of their broad hunting grounds, had not a spirit of intolerance at home led the 
austere but devout Puritans, deeming their religious freedom of more value than 
personal liberty and pleasant homes, to seek, as exiles in an unkindly cliuiato, 
" freedom to worship God." 

They came here to establish a church — they founded an empire I They came 
to sow and nourish the plants of religious freedom; and out of it sprang the 
mighty tree of civil and political liberty! They came to build up a colony — and 
lo, a mighty and independent nation! 

John Carver was the first governor of the new colony, and William Bradford (he 
second. As no portraits of these eminent men are extant, we are obliged, \vi;li 



20 E D W A R D W I N S L O W . 

great reluctance, to pass them by, and come to the third, the subject of this 
brief memoir. 

Edward Winslow was born in Droitwich, in England, in 1594. At a very 
early period of life, he became acquainted with the Puritans, and embraced their 
doctrines. Determining to share their fortunes, he married among them, and 
embarked on board the Mayflower. His name comes next after those of Carver 
and Bradford. Soon after his arrival, he buried his wife, and in due time, married 
Mrs. Susannah White. Mrs. White was the first white mother in New England, 
and as this was the first marriage, became also the first white bride. 

Winslow was one of the choice spirits of these trying times. Born and educated 
in a gentleman's family,, he had acquired a suavity of address not common with 
the Puritans. He exhibited uncommon tact and sagacity in his intercourse with 
the savages, and in the management of fiscal aflairs. With all this he was a man 
of most unyielding integrity and fervent piety. These qualities caused him to be 
frequently made ambassador to the court at home, and to the neighboring chiefs, 
many of whom acquired an affectionate regard for him, which ended only with 
their lives. His visit to the dying Massasoit, to whose necessities he adminis- 
tered with his own hand, and who by his kind attentions was restored to life, is 
characteristic, and won for him the love and respect of all the Indians. 

He made frequent voyages to England on the business of the colony, and while 
there wrote a book on the condition of New England. It was entitled " Good 
News from New England, or a Relation of Things remarkable in that Plantation, 
by E. Winslow." On one of his return voyages, in 1624, he imported the first neat 
cattle ever seen in New England. 

He was first elected governor in 1633, which office he held at various times 
until 1650. When the Puritans obtained political ascendency in England, Wins- 
low was there. His talents and character were appreciated by Cromvv^ell, who 
offered him such distinctions as induced him to remain in England, and he never 
afterwards returned to America. 

When Cromwell sent out an expedition for the reduction of St. Domingo, 
Winslow was appointed chief commissioner, with full powers to superintend the 
opt^rations of the expedition, and to negotiate and make terms with the insurgents. 
This was the last act in his useful life. He took the fever incidental to the 
climate, which carried him off' on the 9th of May, 1655, in the sixty-second year 
of his age. 

Thus died a great and good man. The dazzle of military glory or courtly splen- 
dor rests not on his fame, but a halo of moral grandeur encircles his brow, which 
outshines all lower glories, and which shall last, and burn, and glorify him, 

" When victors' wreaths and monarchs' gems 
Shall blend in common dust." 




POCAHONTAS. 



THIS beautiful Indian princess, whose romantic story has filled so many bosoms 
with wondering emotion, and whose sad and early fate has dimmed so many 
eyes, was the daughter of Powhatan, or Wahunsonacock, the most powerful of all 
the chiefs in the sunny regions of James River and Chesapeake Bay, and was born 
about 1594-5. Her name signifies a run betiveen tivo hills. She seems to have been 
as amiable and intelligent as she was beautiful ; and to her love for the English the 
colony at Jamestown owes its preservation from destruction. We first hear of her 
on a visit of Smith to Powhatan. That chief being absent, Pocahontas did the 
barbarous honors on a grand scale, nearly frightening Smith and his associates out 
of their wits. 

The next year after Smith arrived at Jamestown, he fell into the hands of Pow- 
hatan, as has been narrated in the brief notice of "the redoubtable captain," in an- 
other part of this volume. After much feasting and parade, it was decided, "in a 



22 POCAHONTAS. 

grand council of more than two hundred grim warriors," that Smiih should be put 
to death. Accordingly two stones were brought into the council chamber, and with 
great noise and shouting Smith was dragged forth, and his head laid upon one 
of them, the savages standing by ready with clubs to despatch him. At this mo- 
ment, Pocahontas, who seems to have conceived a partiality for Smith, although not 
more than twelve or thirteen years old, threw herself upon his body, and laid her 
head close to his, entreating her grim and savage sire to spare his victim. Her 
prayers were effectual, and Smith was restored to his friends. 

At another time, while Smith was on a visit to Powhatan, Pocahontas, learning 
that it was determined to take his life, conveyed him away into a thick wood, and 
sent his murderers off in an opposite direction from that in which he lay concealed. 

Subsequently, when the garrison was weak and the colony reduced by sickness 
and famine, it was resolved by the savages to destroy the colony. Here, again, 
Pocahontas became the deliverer of Smith and his band of famished men. Alone, 
amidst the darkness of a dismal and stormy night, she made her way through the 
dense forest, and rousing Smith from his insecure slumbers, made known to him the 
danger that impended over him and his companions. Grateful to his youthful 
savior, he would have heaped upon her those trinkets in which he knew a young 
maiden savage delighted ; but she resolutely declined them with tears, and betook 
herself to her dreary return through the wilderness and the storm, happy that she had 
saved the lives of her friends. 

Pocahontas seems to have been most strongly attached to Captain Smith, but 
whether it was love or reverence which drew her to him it is impossible to say. 
From the fact that she was ready so soon to marry another, we are inclined to be- 
lieve it was the latter. But from the time of Smith's departure for England, in 
1609, she was seen no more in Jamestown, until she was forcibly and treacherously 
abducted, in 1611, and held as a hostage by the English for the space of two years, 
during which time she was kept a prisoner on board a ship. 

It was during this hostageship that Pocahontas formed an attachment with one 
Jjhn Rolfe, with whom, by the consent of Sir Thomas Dale and her kingly father, 
she entered into the holy bonds of matrimony. She lived happily with her husband, 
expressing no wish to return again to savage life. She embraced the Christian 
religion, went to England, was presented to court, and was about to embark once 
more for her native country, when she fell sick and died, at the early age of tweiitij- 
tico, leaving one son, from whom have sprung some of the noblest stock of the Old 
Dominion. 

Her meeting with Smith is described as being truly affecting. Owing to the 
prejudices of the times, " he objected to being called father by the child of a king, 
which she was greatly desirous of doing." At their first interview, after sitting in 
silence for a long time, she said to him, ^^ You promised my father that ichat wan 
yours should be his, and that you and he should be all one. Being- a stranger in our 
country, you called Poivhatan father; and I, for the same reason, ivill noiv call you so. 
You ivere not afraid to come into my country and strike fear into every body but me ; 
and are you now afraid to have me call you father ? / tell you, then, I will call yon 
father, and you shall call me child; and so I will forever be of your kindred and 
caun'ry" 




JOHN WINTHROP. 



BY vsome strange mistake, nearly all the early historians of New England have 
called Winthrop the first governor of Massachusetts. But nothing is more 
certain than that John Endecott has the honor of first acting in that capacity, as we 
have already stated in his memoir. Endecott was chosen by the Company in Eng- 
land before they removed the seat of their authority to the Massachusetts Bay ; and 
Winthrop was elected first after the transfer. Bat he also was elected in England, 
and Endecott served a full year before Winthrop came to this country. 

John Winthrop was born on the 12th of June, 1587, in Groton, Suffolk county. 
England, of a highly respectable family, and received, in his early life, the best edu- 
cation that England could offer. He was bred to the law, but being of a religious 
turn of mind, did not devote himself with much energy to his profession. He was 
possessed of considerable wealth, and the path of ambition and fame was open 
before him. He had, however, become converted to the faith of the Puritans, and 
he resolved to commit his fortunes to the support of the cause in the then infant 
church in New England. He converted his large estate into ready money, and hav- 
ing been elected governor of the Massachusetts colony, he embarked for America at 
the age of forty-two, arriving at Salem on the 12th of June, 1630, and immedi- 
ately entered on his duties as governor of " the colony of Massachusetts Bay." 



24 JOHN WINTIIROP. 

Oil the removal of the seat of government to Boston, which ooenrred soon after, 
Governor Winthrop took up his residence there, where he resided until his death, 
which took place on the 26th of March, 1649, in the sixty-third year of his age. lie 
was a man of polished manners, possessed of great firmness mingled with gentleness, 
and was admirably adapted to the situation in w^hich he was placed. He ruled with 
great discretion in all the financial and political matters of the colony, but with great 
severity in all things appertaining to religious faith and life. He knew no toleration 
for heresy, and could not wink at any open immorality. He had withal a very low 
estimate of the intelligence of the masses, and deemed them utterly incapable of 
ruling themselves. When the people of Connecticut were about forming a govern- 
ment, they sought the advice of Winthrop. Among other things in his answer, he 
writes thus : " The best part of a community is always the least, and of that least 
part the wiser are still less." 

In a speech delivered before the General Court, we have his idea of" a pure democ- 
racy." " You have called us to office," he says, " but being called, we have authority 
from God ; it is the ordinance of God, and hath the image of God stamped upon it ; 
and the contempt of it hath been vindicated by God with terrible examples of his 

vengeance There is a liberty of corrupt nature which is inconsistent with 

authority, impatient of restraint, the grand enemy of truth and peace, and all the 
ordinances of God are bent against it. But there is a civil, sacred, federal liberty, 
which consists in every one's enjoying his property, and having the benefit of the 
laws of his country; a liberty for that only which is just and good; for this liberty 
you are to stand with your lives." 

He, however, became more tolerant of religious opinion as he grew older, and was 
far less harsh in his treatment of those who thought differently from himself. He 
was naturally of a noble and benevolent turn, and the acidity of his faith could not 
utterly cover the leaven of his generosity. He sympathized deeply with all the 
neighboring colonies, corresponding with, visiting, and advising them in all things 
pertaining to the general weal. He was endowed with an excellent judgment, which 
he exercised with great coolness and deliberation. He was also assiduous in his 
duties, and labored with unwearying diligence to accomplish them. 

Governor Winthrop came to New England possessed of considerable wealth, and 
died a poor man. Exceedingly benevolent, and deeming no sacrifice too great for 
the holy cause to which he had consecrated himself, he therefore gave freely of his 
fortune, as of his time and intellect, in its support. 

An anecdote is related of him which exhibits at one view his benevolence and his 
humor. During the severe cold of a hard winter, when wood was both scarce and 
dear, he was told that a poor neighbor was in the habit of drawing his supply of fuel 
from his wood pile. " Is he?" replied the governor, in much seeming anger; " send 
him to me, and I will cure him of his stealing any more." When the culprit came 
trembling into his presence, he put on his blandest expression, and taking him by the 
hand, said to him, " Friend, it is a cold winter, and I hear that you are meanly pro- 
vided with wood. You are welcome to help yourself at my wood pile until the 
winter is over." He afterwards merrily asked his informant if he did not think that 
lie had cured the man of stealins:. 




SIT^ riENUY VANE. 



T requires a much loftier and nobler courage than that which enables the hero to 
walk, unblenching, to the cannon's mouth, to set one's self against the popular 
voice, and confront the executive power that sustains and enforces it. The men who 
have heroically dared to deny the right of tyrants and tyrant-governments to trample 
on the liberties of mankind, and freely and cheerfully given " their lives, their fortunes, 
and their sacred honor," to maintain their denial, are few indeed — here and there 
one in a generation. In that bright galaxy of names, that of Sir Henry Vane shines 
as a star of the first magnitude. 

Sir Henry Vane, eldest son to Sir Henry Vane, was born at Hadlow, in Kent, 
England, about the year 1612. After pursuing a course of studies at the famous 
Westminster school, he was admitted, at the age of sixteen, as a gentleman com- 
moner at Magdalen Hall, Oxford. Of his life prior to these events nothing is now 
known, and but little can be gathered concerning him from the time of leaving the 
university to his emigration to New England, except that he spent a year or two in 
foreign travel. While abroad, he spent considerable time at Geneva, and there 
imbibed such sentiments, that on his return home he became quite obnoxious to 



26 SIR HENRY VANE. 

both his father and the court. Finding his situation at home an uncomfortable one, 
and his influence being feared by the government, " he was permitted to dejjart for 
New England " — a sort of expatriation practised upon many a troublesome and 
influential patriot of those times. 

In August, 1635, Vane, with a dozen or more others of the same dangerous opin- 
ions, were freighted to New England " in the good ship Defiance," and were landed 
at Boston on the 3d of October. The following May, Vane was chosen governor 
of the colony, " which election was congratulated," says Hubbard, " with a volley of 
shot by all the vessels in the harbor." It was a compliment of no mean character to 
Sir Henry, that the choice should have fallen on him, when such men as Winthrop, 
Endecott, and others, were his colleagues. His administration was a marked one, 
and in the divided state of feeling then prevalent in the colony, begat for him strong 
friends and most bitter enemies. This period was, doubtless, the most difficult one 
in the previous history of the colony. Religious dissensions ran high, and " the 
church was sadly torn and rent." Mrs. Hutchinson and her party sided with Gov- 
ernor Vane, while most of the clergy attached themselves to the side of Governor 
Winthrop. It was in Sir Henry Vane's administration, also, that the dreadful scenes 
of the Pequot war were enacted, and when, but for the pacific overtures of Roger 
Williams, the whole New England colonies would have been annihilated. 

At the next election the party of Vane were found to be in the minority, and 
Winthrop came into the succession. Weary of his office and New England, Gov- 
ernor Vane returned the same year to England, and, through his father's influence, 
was soon invested with the dignities and emoluments of offices of high trust and 
power. He became singularly mixed up with the exciting and bloody scenes in 
which Strafford and Charles I. lost their heads, as well as during the Protectorate 
and the Restoration. Under this last regime he was impeached for " compassing- and 
imagining the death of the king ;''"' and although not a shadow of evidence was afTord- 
ed to support that charge, he was condemned, and accordingly beheaded, on the 14th 
of June, 1662, on the same spot where Strafford had suffered. His conduct during 
the trial and execution was such as became a great mind and a Christian spirit. 
He disdained to make submission, although promised his life. 

Sir Henry Vane was a man of imposing aspect, and he won the respect of al! 
around him by his dignified and easy address. 




GOVERNOR ENDETOTT. 



JOHN ENDECOTT, "the Father of New England," as he has been called 
by historians, was born in Dorchester, Dorsetshire, England, in the year 1588. 
That he was of respectable parentage, that he had a good education and a refined 
mind, that he was at one time a surgeon, as well as captain of a trainband, seems to 
be about all that is known of his life, previous to his connection with the " Ma-ssa- 
chusetts Company," who settled the colony first at Naumkeag, or Salem. 

Governor Endecott seems to have embraced Puritanism, under the guidance and 
through the influence of Rev. Mr. Skelton, who became one of the earliest ministers 
of the colony, and between whom and the governor the most afl'ectionate relations 
existed. 

In 1628, Governor Endecott, in company with other influential men, purchased a 
grant from the " Plymouth Council in England " for the settlement of the " Massa- 
chusetts Bay," and in June of that year came over and took possession of the same, 
Endecott having received the appointment of governor of the colony. The model 
of the government was formed in England, and consisted of a governor and twelve 
persons, styled " The Governor and Council, of London's Plantation in the 
Massachusetts Bay in New England." 

None but stern men, moved by a high religious purpose and sus+ained by a 

3 



28 JOHN EN DEC OTT. 

martyr spirit, could have borne " the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" which 
their new residence invited. Disease, famine, suffering, hardship, and death filled 
the measure of their choice, and yet they shrunk not at the trial, nor withdrew their 
hand from the lot that had fallen to them. In a word, these men were Puritans, — 
only the synonyme for endurance, — they gloried in the cross as their crown. And 
among this band of hardy and pious men, Endecott was an " ensample to the flock." 
In all their trials, they looked to him for counsel and direction, and they found him 
always equal to the emergency. Bereaved of the wife of his bosom, whom he dearly 
loved, he moved among the sick and suffering, administering comfort with his own 
hand, and imparting courage by the example of his own energy and lofty endurance. 

Governor Endecott was a strict disciplinarian. He could not wink at any flagrant 
violation of the laws. At Mount Wollaston, Dorchester, one Morton, notorious for 
his latitudinarianism and contempt of law and the church, had collected a company 
of men of a similar spirit to himself, erected a May-pole, and christened their place 
Merry Mount. Their unseemly orgies were a stench in the nostrils of the pious 
Endecott, and forthwith he went there in " the purifying spirit of authority," (Morton 
having been just before sent to England to answer to the charges preferred against 
him,) cut down their May-pole, changed the name of the place to Mount Dagon, 
and " rebuked the inhabitants for their profaneness, and admonished them to look to 
it that they walked better." 

In the summer of 1630, the government was entirely transferred from England to 
the colony, and John Winthrop was chosen governor, who administered the affairs 
of the company in the same spirit that had governed the conduct of his predecessor. 

Governor Endecott was again married, on the 18th of August, 1630, to Elizabeth 
Gibson, of Cambridge, England, who came over with Winthrop in the Arabella. 

The first open act of defiance to kingly authority of which we have any record in 
the history of the colony was performed by Governor Endecott. It was on this wise. 
He cut the red cross from the king's banner with his sword, and declared that he 
would never recognize such a relic of Popery. It was a direct insult to the king and 
the church of England, and would have probably cost him his head had not the 
unfortunate Charles I., just at that period, been entirely occupied with the storm 
which had already burst on his head, and which eventually overwhelmed him in 
ruin, and brought him to the block. It was a daring exploit, and although every true 
Puritan rejoiced in it, yet their fear of the throne compelled the colony to take notice 
of the act, and to enter their protest against it. 

Governor Winthrop died in 1649 ; and from that time until his death, which 
occurred on the 15th of March, 1665, at the age of seventy-seven years, Endecott 
held the office of governor, with the exception of two years, when he was elected 
deputy governor. This was, perhaps, the most trying time in the early history of the 
colony, and it needed that a man of great energy and probity should be at the head 
of the government. During his administration, Charles I. suffered a violent death, 
Cromwell usurped the government of England, and the Stuarts were again restored 
to their legitimate authority. In every emergency and difficulty he was found equal 
to the trial, and won for himself the respect and love of all good and wise men, and 
when " he fell asleep in the Lord," was interred, as tradition saith, in the " Chapel 
burying-ground," with great honor and solemnity. It is a blot on the fair fame of 
Boston that " no stone marks the resting-place of the Father of New England." 




REBECCA RAWSON. 



THE sober history of New England has been written many times over by men 
of the most widely differing views, tastes, and opinions. There is no lack of 
material out of which to form a pretty just estimate of the acts of that history, and 
the men who performed them. But of the romance of our colonial existence, little 
has come down to us. Of fiction, we have had enough. We have thought that a 
considerable volume might be made, filled with the strange and romantic scenes 
which decorated the warp and woof of that historic web. 

Rebecca Rawson was the sixth daughter and ninth child of Edward Rawson 
"the famous secretary," who traced his descent from Sir Edward Rawson, "a 
doughty knight of ancient memory." She was born in Boston, May 23^ 1 6£G, and 
her life affords material for as romantic a tale as ever adorned the pages (»f fictitn. 
She was nursed in the lap of luxury, and was pronounced to be one of the most 
beautiful and accomplished young ladies in New England. "Beautiful and vain,'' 
she considered herself " suitable to wed a lord." An impudent knave from Eng- 
land, by the name of Ramsey, possessed of a pleasing person and attractive address, 
passed himself off as Sir Thomas Hale, Jr., nephew to the lord chief justice of that 



;^0 REBECCA RAWSON. 

name, and as such paid court to the fair Rebecca, gained her consent, and "in pres- 
ence of forty witnesses," they were solemnly married, " for better and for worse," by 
a minister of the gospel, on the 1st of July, 1679. 

She was " handsomely furnished," and immediately sailed for England, with her 
boxes and bundles, and her lord, her vain bosom swelling with pictures of the gay 
and giddy life she was to lead at court. In due time she safely arrived, and went 
on shore in a dishabille, leaving her trunks and packages to be sent after her. Early 
the next morning, her "lord" took the keys, and told her he would send up the 
trunks in season for her to dress for dinner. In due time the trunks came, but with 
them no keys and no husband. After waiting until a late hour, with the greatest 
impatience, she had the trunks opened by force, and, lo ! not an article of any value 
was left in them. He had decamped, stripping her of every thing but the dishabille 
in which she was attired. In an inexpressible astonishment, she ordered a carriage, 
and drove to the place where she had spent the night before with her husband, and 
inquired for Sir Thomas Hale. " She was informed that he had not been there for 
some days. She was sure that he was there the night before. In reply, she was told 
that one Thomas Ramsey was there the night before, with a young lady, but that he 
had gone offtjiat morning to Canterbury to see his wife .'" The news fell on her ear 
like a thunderbolt, and crushed her hopes, and crushed her heart, and crushed her 
pride. She never saw him again. 

Alone, abandoned, betrayed, ruined, expecting soon to become a mother, with no 
funds, and too much pride to apply to her friends, she sought a humble abode, and 
with the aid of her needle and pencil, for thirteen long years supported herself and 
her child in a genteel manner. Yearning at length to see her friends, she left her 
child in care of a sister who had come to England to reside, and embarked for 
Boston, by way of Jamaica. While at this latter port, her vessel was swallowed up 
')v an earthquake ; and thus tragically ended her eventful and melancholy life. 




PENELOPE WINSLOW. 



ONE of the most mortifying reflections, in connection with New England history, 
is the fact, that so little is known of the lives and characters of the mothers and 
wives of those eminent men who founded our institutions, and framed and adminis- 
tered our early laws. Unhappy mistake, which supposes that the history of a nation 
is complete when its public acts arc recorded, and the biographies of its eminent men 
are written. The influence of woman on the character and growth of a nation is 
universally confessed. How would the present race, sons of the Pilgrims, love to be 
able to look into the record of those HOMES where such Anaks were born, and 
study the quiet virtues of the brave dames which bare, and the gentle sisters who 
held their magic thrall over, those sturdy sons and brothers ! 

The men that knelt on the deck of that emigrant ship at Delft Haven, when th(^ 
godly and gifted Robinson " lifted up his voice and wept " his prayer for a prosper- 
ous voyage to the bleak shores of New England, held no more in their strong hearts 
the destinies of the new world, than those gentler ones who bowed in holy trust and 
wondrous fortitude by their side. And yet the record of their bosoms and their lives 
is lost, and scarce a trace can now be discovered. And of them all not a portrait ij- 



32 PENELOPE WINSLOW 

to be found, whereby we might refresh our imaginings of their persons or their 
virtues. 

The portrait of the wife of Governor Josiah Winslow (and of which we have been 
kindly permitted to take the above copy) is the only one that can be found, as far as 
we can learn, of any woman prior to 1650—60. It represents the subject of this 
sketch as young and comely, and " dressed with grace and great becomingness." 

Mrs. Penelope Winslow was the daughter of Herbert Pelham, Esq., an Eng- 
lish gentleman of considerable distinction. He was among the first to feel and 
express an interest in the affairs of the new and struggling colony at Plymouth, and 
contributed liberally towards its support. He never made New England his home 
barely visiting it in 1637. His daughter, it appears, enthralled by the handsome 
and fascinating son of the elder Winslow, did not scruple to forego the refinements 
of her English home for the more republican one of the gallant captain, to whom she 
gave her hand. The date of the marriage we have been unable to ascertain, but it 
is supposed to be in 1657. 

Mrs. Winslow is represented as a woman of exceeding beauty, and extremely 
fascinating in her manners. She was very accomplished for the age in which she 
lived, and presided at her husband's board with great dignity and urbanity. When 
we take into consideration that her husband acquired the distinction of being the 
handsomest and most polite man of New England, we can readily conceive how 
recherche must have been those weekly reunions in the drawing rooms of Careswell, 
where the beauty, and wit, and talent of the colony were assembled, and where taste 
and money were lavished to make them brilliant and delightful. 

Mrs. Winslow bore her husband four children, — two sons and two daughters, — 
and survived him twenty-three years. She died at " Careswell," Marshfield, 
December 7, 1703, in the seventy-fourth year of her age. 




WILLIAM PENN. 



rjriHIS very gifted and singular man, the founder of the state which bears his 
Jl name, was born in London, October 14, 1644. Before he was fifteen he entered 
Oxford, and was converted to Quakerism by the eloquence of an itinerant preacher 
of that sect, and expelled from college for nonconformity before he was sixteen. 
Honest in his convictions and sturdy in adhering to them, neither the expostulations 
of his friends, the discipline of his father, nor the threats of the church could shake 
his faith in his purpose. He studied law in Lincoln's Inn uuiil the year 1665, when, 
the plague breaking out in his native city, he went to Ireland to manage an estate 
for his father. Here he joined himself to a fraternity of Quakers, in consequence of 
which he was recalled. He was so persistent in his adherence to the habits and 
dogmas of his sect, that his father banished him from his house, and he commenced 
the life of an itinerant, and was very successful in gaining proselytes to his sect. 
He was exceedingly obnoxious to the government, and was several times lined and 
imprisoned — but nothing intimidated him. Even in prison he wrote and published 
books, and sent them forth into the world. 

On the death of his father, a large estate fell to his possession ; but h>^ connnned io 



34 WILLIAM PENN. 

write, and travel, and preach as before. The crown owing large debts to the estate, 
Penn asked and obtained, in 1681, a charter of Pennsylvania, where a colony was 
'soon planted, and he himself arrived there the following year. Feeling that he had 
no moral claim to the soil, he negotiated with the Indians who occupied it, and pur- 
chased it of them at a price perfectly satisfactory to them. He established the capi- 
tal, and named it Philadelphia; drew up a code of laws for his growing colony, or- 
daining a perfect toleration of religious opinion, and returned to England in 1684, to 
exert his influence in favor of his suffering brethren there, who were exposed to all 
the rigors of an unrelenting persecution. His earnest and honest eloquence was not 
unsuccessful, and he had the pleasure to know that he was the instrument of deliv- 
erance of more than thirteen hundred of his brethren who had been cast into prison 
for their heresy. So malignant were his enemies that they succeeded in casting hira 
into prison on the charge of Papacy. He succeeded, however, in obtaining his free- 
dom, and returned once more to America, when he revised his code of laws, made 
some alterations in the form of government, at the same time travelling through the 
country, preaching and writing on the subject which was nearest his heart. In 1700, 
he sailed again for England, where he resumed his favorite pursuits, and continued 
there until 1712, when paralysis put a stop to his active life. He lingered under this 
disease until 1718, when he was called to his reward on high. 

William Penn was a rare character. " He combined gentleness and dignity in 
an eminent degree, sometimes extremely facetious, at others grave and severe ; of an 
extraordinary greatness of mind, yet without ambition." His intercourse with the 
Indians was void of treachery, and he won their confidence to an unlimited degree. 
He overcame them with gentleness and truth, and conquered them without spilling 
their blood or violating their homes. 

Penn was a laborer in the vineyard of his Master. Besides travelling and preach- 
ing constantly, he superintended all the affairs of his colony, and wrote innumerable 
tracts and quite a number of books of considerable pretension, among which were 
the following : " No Cross no Crown, or several sober Reasons against Hat Honor, 
Titular Respects, ' You ' to a single Person, &c., &c.," 4to., 1659 ; " Serious Apolo- 
gy for the People called Quakers, against Dr. Jeremy Taylor," 4to., 1669 ; " The 
Spirit of Truth vindicated, in Answer to a Socinian," 4to., 1672 ; " Quakerism a 
new Nickname for old Christianity," 8vo., 1672 ; " Reason versus Railing, and 
Truth versus Fiction," 8vo., 1673 ; " The Christian Quaker and his divine Testimo- 
ny vindicated," folio, 1674. 

Few men have lived whose efforts, through a long life, have been so productive 
of good, and so free from evil. When the prophecy of the angels, at the advent of 
the Messiah, shall become a fulfilment, and " peace on earth " shall no longer be the 
ideal of the s eer, then shall the name of PENN be written high on " the scroll of 
heaven," and angels shall do homage to it. 




COTTON MATHER. 



rr^HIS eminent divine was born in Boston on the 12th of February, 1662-3. 
JL After availing himself of the advantages of the free schools of his native 
town, he entered Harvard College, where he was graduated at the early age of 
sixteen. Before he was nineteen, he received the degree of M. A. 

Dr. Mather would have ranked high as a scholar, at the present day, and in 
the times in which he lived was considered a prodigy of learning. "Wonderfully 
precocious, and possessed of a powerful memory, he gathered up knowledge with 
the greed a miser exhibits in amassing gold. He became the greatest linguist of 
the age, and wrote more books than any other man. He became known through- 
out Europe as well as his native country, and was in constant correspondence 
with the learned men of the world. In forty-one years, he wrote and published 
two hundred and eighty-three books, averaging nearly seven books to each year. 
His " Magnalia " was, without doubt, the most remarkable of his productions, 
and the one that is inseparably connected with his name. He was a firm believer 
in witchcraft, never doubting but that it was the immediate handiwork of the 
Father of lies. Perhaps, had he lived in these days, he would have been a full 
convert to mesmerism and spiritual rappings. 



3 3 C O T T O N M A T 11 E R . 

In 1684, at the early age of twenty-two, he was ordained as colleague with his 
father, Rev. Increase Mather, D. D., and two years afterwards, commenced his 
authorship, his first publication being " A Sermon to the Artillery Company in 
Middlesex." He was married about this time, and losing his wife in 1702, he 
married again, in less than a year, Mrs. Elizabeth Hubbard. His son, Samuel 
Mather, M. A., thus speaks of this excellent lady : " She was a woman of good 
sense, and blessed with a complete discretion, with a very handsome, engaging 
countenance ; and one honorably descended and related. He rejoiced in her as 
having g-reat spoilt It was his misfortune to follow to the grave, also, this ines- 
timable woman, who had borne him six children, his first wife having blessed him 
with nine. He married yet once more, but there was no issue from this third 
union. He died on the 13th of February, 1727-8, just sixty-five years of age. 

Pr. Mather was a very fluent writer. He wrote with great ease out of the 
furnishing of his own mind, and in an off-hand style, which shows the ready and 
the careless writer. Consequently, his numerous works are destined to be forgotten 
by posterity, with the exception, perhaps, of his " Magnalia." 

In 1710, he published " An Essay upon the Good to be devised by those who 
would answer the great End of Life." It was full of sound maxims of life, and 
has been rendered somewhat famous by the notice taken of it by Benjamin Frank- 
lin, who was well acquainted with the subject of this memoir, when the former 
was a quite young man. When Franklin became an old man, and Dr. Mather 
slumbered with his fathers, he writes thus to Samuel, son of Cotton Mather, of a 
little incident in their lives which has become known wherever books are read, 
through the inimitably practical turn given to it by Franklin : — 

" You mention being in your seventy-fifth year ; I am in my seventy-ninth. 
We are grown old together. It is now more than sixty years since I left Boston, 
but I well remember both your father and your grandfather ; having heard them 
both in the pulpit, and seen them at their houses. The last time I saw your father 
was in the beginning of 1724, when I visited him after my first trip to Pennsylvania. 
He received me in his library, and on my taking leave, showed me a shorter way 
out of the house through a narrow passage, which was crossed by a beam over- 
head. We were still talking as I withdrew, he accompanying me behind, and I 
turning partly towards him, when he said hastily, ' Stoop ! stoop! ' I did not under- 
stand him until I felt my head hit against the beam. He was a man that never 
missed an occasion of giving instruction, and upon this he said to me, ' You are 
young', and have the ivor/d before you ; sloop as you go through it, and you ivill 
escape many hard thumps,^ This advice, thus beat into my head, has frequently 
been of use to me, and I often think of it when I see pride mortified, and misfor- 
tunes brought upon people by their carrying their heads too high." 




SIR MARTIN EROBISHER, 



ri'^lHE world is indebted for all its valuable knowledge to a few hopeful and in- 
JL domitable spirits, who, in their day and generation, were the objects of much 
ridicule and persecution — the '■^knights de la Mancha^^ of the age they lived in. It 
is a blessed consideration, that satire and contempt, persecution and stripes, Only 
stimulate, not imprison, true genius. Faith is an essential element of genius. By 
its aid it penetrates all mists, reaches all heights, compasses all possibilities, and 
predicates the true, which the eyes of the million see not, and the lips of the million 
deny. " Wisdom is hidden with the few." 

The subject of this sketch was a seer, and foretold somewhat that has come to 
pass. He also rendered very important service to the world by his various voyages 
of discovery along the shores of the western hemisphere, as we shall see. 

It is matter of much regret that the early history of most of these ancient navigators 
is so obscure and uncertain. It is often difficult to say, with any preciseness, where 
or when they were born ; and the record of their death is often no more than that of 
their birth. From what we can discover, it seems that Sir Martin Frobisher was 
born near Doncaster, England, about 1536, and that he commenced his voyages of 
discovery about 1576, or at the age of forty. He must have become interested in 



38 SIR MARTIN FR OBI SHER. 

these matters very young, for the celebrated chronicler, Hakluyt, tells us that " he 
had been fifteen years on this enterprise before he was able to set out on it." Not 
only Hakluyt, but Camden, Stow, and Speed have briefly noticed the voyages of 
Frobisher. We shall transcribe what Stow says of him, entire ; for, meagre as it is, 
it seems to embrace all that is known of him. 

" Martin Frobusher, borne neere Doncaster, in Yorkeshire, in his youth gaue him- 
selfe to Nauigation, he was the first Englishman that discoured the North way to 
China, and Cathay, and at his first discourie of the way to Cathay at which time for 
tryall of what he could find there, brought thence a black soft stone like sea coale, 
supposed to be gold, or siluer Oare, & in that perswasion made two seuerall voyages 
againe to Cathaye, bringing with them great quantitie of the sayd supposed Oare, 
the which after due tryall & much expence prooued not worth any thing, neither fit 
for any vse, a great quantity of which stufFe was layed in the nursery at Darford, no 
man regarding it, he was vice-admirall to Sir Francis Drake, at the winning of Saint 
Domingo, Saint lago, Carthagena, and Saint Augustino. 

" Hee did great seruice in the yeere one thousand fine hundred eightie and eight, 
vpon the inuincible Spanish Armado, for which he was Knighted, after that hee was 
General of tenne ships, to keepe Brest-hauen in Britaine, where the Spaniardes neen; 
thereunto had strongly fortified themselues, in whose extirpation he did speciall ser- 
uice by Sea and Land, and was there shotte into the side with a Musket, the wounde 
not mortall, he lined vntill hee came to Plimmouth, through the negligence of his 
surgeon that onely tooke out the Bullet, not sufficiently searched the Wound, to take 
out the Bombaste strucke in with the shotte the sore festered, whereof he dyed, & 
was buried in Plimmouth, he was very valiant, yet harsh & violent." 

The account of Speed is still more brief, and is as follows : — 

" For the searching and vnsatisfied spirits of the English, to the great glory of our 
Nation, could not be contained within the bankes of the Mediterranean or Leuant 
Seas, but that they passed farre, towards both the Articke and Antarticke Poles, in- 
larging their trades into the West and East Indies : to the search of whose passage, 
that worthy Sea-Captaine Sir Martin Furhusher, made Saile into the North-East- 
Seas, farre further then any man before him had euer done, giuing to these parts the 
name of Queene Elizabeths Foreland. 

" The next yeere hee attempted thirty leagues further, when finding Gold Ore (as 
was thought) and taking a man, woman, and child, of the Sauag-e Catayes, he re- 
turned into England; but as his gold prooued drosse, so these lined not long, neither 
turned that discouery to any great profit, though it was againe the third time assaied 
by himself, and since by other most famous Nauigators, the Northwest by Englishmen 
being lately descried, to bee Seas more safe, and the passage of farre better hope." 

Sir Martin had the entire confidence of Elizabeth, and for his gallant deeds in the 
defence of her kingdom against the famous Spanish Armada, was honored with 
knighthood. 



P A R T II. 



EMBRACING THE PERIOD FROM THE 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, 



WAR OF 1812 WITH ENGLAND. 




GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



IT is easy to find a gi'eat hero, a great statesman, a great patriot, or a great saint; 
but we rarely see heroism, statesmanship, patriotism, and religion combining to 
make a man. Providence seems for once to have been profuse in her gifts to the 
great and good Washington. Brilliant in nothing, exceeded by many men in all 
that marks a genius, yet he stands out among and above his race for that rare com- 
bination of all that is excellent in the character of a man. His patriotism was as 
incorruptible as it was ardent, and a lofty rectitude marks every small, as well as 
every great, action of his life. He was a man to be loved as well as venerated, and 
every true American delights to accord to him the proud title of " The Father of 
HIS Country." 

He was born in Virginia, in 1732. The common schools of the state afforded the 
only opportunities for his education, and the study of mathematics was his principal 
delight. At the age of nineteen, he received an appointment in the army with the 
title of major, and of lieutenant colonel in 1754, and the same year was advanced to 
a colonelcy. He was elected a member of the House of Burgesses in 1759, and a 
delegate to the first Continental Congress in 1774. In that day of great peril, when 
the Congress had done what they could to raise " that glorious old continental army," 



42 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 

all eyes were turned to Washington as its leader, and he was unanimously appointed 
its commander-in-chief, where his prudence and firmness, his bravery and wisdom, 
were the admiration of all calm and wise men, and brought order out of discord, 
and triumph out of difficulty. 

In May, 1787, that celebrated convention met at Philadelphia for the purpose of 
forming a constitution, over which Washington was called to preside, and the result 
of which was that admirable instrument which has ever since been the law of the 
nation. And when, after being adopted by the states, it became necessary to fulfil 
its first requisition, namely, the election of the first President of the United States, 
no other man was thought of but George Washington, and he was unanimously 
chosen to that office. He was, by the unanimous voice of his country, called to serve 
a second term, and was again inaugurated on the 4th of March, 1793. 

During the administration of his successor, the elder Adams, when war seemed 
inevitable between France and the United States, Washington was again called 
from his retirement, and appointed commander-in-chief of the American forces. 
Fortunately his valuable services were required but for a brief period, and never in 
actual conflict; and he once more retired to the shades of Mount Vernon ; from 
which, to his higher reward, Providence saw fit to call him the succeeding year. 
He died December 14, 1799, at the age of sixty-eight, and was buried at Mount 
Vernon, amidst the grateful tears of his countrymen. 

The patriotism of Washington was most severely tested; but nothing could shake 
it in the heart of the man who peremptorily declined any kind of compensation at 
the hands of Congress for the inestimable services he had rendered to his country. 
In the dark and stormy period of 1775-6, when the hopes of many brave patriots 
almost died out of their bosoms ; when the public faith was weak in the stability of 
our institutions ; when Congress seemed paralyzed, and all spirits gathered fear, — 
many of the officers of his army, believing that if the power were placed in the hands 
of one man, and that man Washington, the country might yet be saved, through 
one of their number, proposed to him, in a written communication, that he should 
consent to be made King, as the only hope yet left to the country. 

Washington's reply to this proposition is worthy of all praise. " With a mixture 
of great surprise and astonishment," he writes, " I have read with attention the sen- 
timents you have submitted to my perusal. Be assured, sir, no occurrence in the 
course of the war has given me more painful sensations than yovir information of 
there being such ideas existing in the army as you have expressed, and I must view 
with abhorrence and reprehend with severity. . . . Let me conjure you, then, if 
you have any regard for your country, concern for yourself or posterity, or respect for 
me, to banish these thoughts from your mind, and never communicate, as from 
yourself or any one else, a sentiment of a like nature." 

It was, however, the pure and rational spirit of Piety which gilds with a charm 
the whole character of Washington. His consistent recognition of Providence ; his 
unfaltering faith in the rectitude of the great object which inspired his breast and 
the breasts of his countrymen ; his invincible repugnance to deceit or treachery in any 
form ; his untarnished honesty in all he said and did through life, — these form a halo 
of glory, which adds beauty and symmetry to his character, and marks " The 
Perfect Man and the Upright." 




"^i 



■\,w^^ 



BENJAMIN FllAMvLIN 



ON a raw. cold morning in October, 1723, might have been seen strolling along 
Chestnut Street, in the city of Philadelphia, an awkward, green-looking lad, of 
about seventeen years of age, dirty and ill dressed, with his pockets stuffed out with 
various articles of his scanty wardrobe, a roll of bread under each arm and another 
in his hand, which from time to time he munched, as he stared at the various objects 
which attracted his attention. 

In 1778, there was to be seen moving amidst the gay and richly-dressed courtiers, 
ministers, and ambassadors'of the brilliant court of the King of France, " a venerable 
man, with straight, unpowdered hair, a round hat, and a plain brown cloth coat," 
who commanded the respect of all around him, and whose acquaintance was sought 
with eagerness by civilians, statesmen, philosophers, scholars, and kings ; a man 
whose fame had preceded him as the great philosopher and statesman of that age. 

That friendless and destitute stripling, taking his breakfast from a threepenny 
loaf in the open streets of Philadelphia on a chill October morning, and that venera- 
ble man to whom all sought to render honor in the gay court of Versailles, were one 
and the same individual, and no less an individual than the world-wide celebrated 
Benjamin Franklin. j. 



44 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

" The child was father to the man ;" and it was the same invincible energy and 
faith which had brought him from his brother's printing office in Boston to the then 
far distant streets of Philadelphia, that elevated that courageous and hopeful stripling 
to the highest honors and distinctions. To no sudden freak of fortune, to no unex- 
pected turn of luck, did he owe his wealth, his knowledge, or his position. No; 
round by round did he ascend the ladder of his greatness, laboriously, and not without 
great perseverance. He has shown us the method in the brief memoir of himself 
which he has given to the world, and in those maxims of life which he has drawn 
up for the young and the old. 

Every body knows his history ; and we propose to fill our allotted space with 
a selection of those wise sayings of Dr. Franklin which have become proverbs in 
the lip,s of the world. His philosophy was eminently of the practical kind, and he 
illustrated it in his own life. 

When he became master of his own business, and set up shop for himself, " in 
order to secure my credit and character as a tradesman," he says, in the biography 
he has given of himself, " I took care not only to be really industrious and frugal, 
but to avoid the appearances to the contrary. T dressed plain, and was seen at no 
places of idle diversion. I never went out a fishing or shooting. A book, indeed, 
sometimes debauched me from my work, but that was seldom, was private, and 
gave no scandal ; and, to show that I was not above my business, I sometimes 
brought home the paper I purchased at the stores through the streets on a wheel- 
barrow. Thus being esteemed an industrious, thriving young man, and paying 
duly for what I bought, the merchants who imported stationery solicited my custom, 
others proposed supplying me with books, and I went on prosperously." 

The following hints are from his " Advice to a Young Tradesman," written in 
1748 : — 

" Remember that time is money. He that can earn ten shillings per day by his 
labor, and goes abroad, or sits idle one half of that day, though he spends but six- 
pence during this diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon tliat the only expense ; 
he has really spent, or rather thrown away, five shillings besides. 

" Remember that credit is money. If a man lets money lie in my hands after it 
is due, he gives me the interest, or so much as I can make of it during that time. 
This amounts to a considerable sum when a man has a good and large credit, and 
makes good use of it. 

" Remember that money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more, and 
so on. Five shillings turned is six; turned again, it is seven and threepence; and 
so on, until it becomes a hundred pounds. 

" The most triHing actions that aifect a man's credit are to be regarded. The 
sound of your hammer at five in the morning or nine at night, heard by a creditor, 
makes him easy six months longer ; but if he sees you at a billiard table, or hears 
your voice at the tavern, when you should be at work, he sends for his money the 
next day. 

" In short, the way to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the way to market. 
It depends chieny on two words — industry a.nd frug-a/ify ; that is, waste neither 
lime nor monry, but make the best use of both." 




> '; 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 



r 



]Vr ARROW minds judge of men by the party badge they put on ; enlarged and 
L^ liberal ones by the temper they manifest, and the actions they perform. 
Enough that a man belongs, or has belonged, to one or the other of the great 
national-political parties ; he is a had man in the eyes of all small men in the oppo- 
site ranks. To discriminate is the task of the historian — the duty of all. 

It is no mean tribute to the worth of Jefferson that he was called so soon to 
succeed Washington in the administration of the new government of the United 
States; that he was deemed a worthy competitor with John Adams for that high 
honor. In those days no mean man could have entered the lists with the slightest 
prospect of success. , 

Thomas Jefferson was born at Shadwell, Albemarle county, Virginia, on the 
2d of April, 1743. He took his degree at William and Mary's College, and studied 
law with George Wythe, afterwards chancellor of the State of Virginia. The stern 
spirit of resistance to tyranny which manifested itself in all he said and did, during 
the progress of the Revolution, exhibited itself very early in life. One of his seals, 
while in college, bore the following motto : " Ab eo libertas a quo spiritus ;^^ another, 
"Resistance to tyranl^s is obedience to God." He strongly sympathized with the 



46 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

spirit of freedoiTi in the colonies, and, in 1769, signed a resolution not to import any 
articles from the mother country. In 1772, he married, but lived in the connubial 
state only ten years, when death took from him his truly amiable and intelligent 
wife, leaving to his care two infant daughters. "While a member of the House of 
Delegates, in 1773, he advised and arranged the first plan of regular resistance to 
British aggression, by the formation of committees of correspondence in the diiferent 
colonies. He took his seat in the General Colonial Congress on the 21st of June, 
1775, and became one of its most prominent members. In the following year, he 
was appointed chairman of that immortal committee chosen to draw up a Declara- 
tion of Independence. This instrument was the work of his pen, and was adopted 
on the 4th of July, 1776. 

He was chosen commissioner to the court of France with Franklin and Deane, 
but declined the honor. He also resigned his seat in Congress, and was immediately 
chosen to the first legislature under the new constitution of Virginia. Here he turned 
all the powers of his great mind to the revision of the code of laws then existing, 
and so effectually did he labor, that there is scarcely a section of the present code 
that is not the result of his action expressed in his own words. This was the great 
act of his life, and justly entitles him to the respect and admiration of the world. 

In 1779, he was elected governor of Virginia, and in 1783, member of Congress 
from his native state. While a member of this body, Washington resigned his com- 
mand of the army and retired to private life. Jefferson was the author of the elegant 
address to the Father of his Country voted on that occasion. 

In 1784, JeflTerson went as minister to France, where for five years his talents for 
diplomacy w^ere often tasked to the utmost, and were always found equal to the 
trial ; and in 1789, he returned to the United States, where he was received with 
many marks of public favor. Washington immediately called him into his councils, 
and he received the appointment of Secretary of State. His great statesmanship 
eminently qualified him for this important post. He immediately set himself to lay 
down maxims and rules of foreign intercourse which have governed all our subse- 
quent administrations. In 1795, he was called to the chair of the American Philo- 
sophical Society, and was the third president of that institution ; his predecessors 
being the illustrious Franklin and Rittenhouse, one of the most celebrated men of 
his times. 

In March, 1801, Mr. Jefferson was inaugurated as third President of the United 
States, with Aaron Burr as vice president; and again, in 1805, with George Clinton as 
vice president. That the administration of Mr. Jefferson was an able one, all admit; 
and we have no desire to enter into a consideration — even had we room — of the 
acrimonious party spirit of those times which could see nothing good in an oppo- 
nent, nothing wrong in a friendly partisan. 

Of Mr. Jefferson's private life, it is enough to say that he was beloved and re- 
spected by all who knew him ; and his death, which occurred on the ever-glorious 
anniversary of the declaration of independence in 1826, filled his country with 
mourning. 




MAHQUISDE LA FAYETTE. 



OF all the heroes who enlisted in the cause of American freedom, no one is 
more deserving of our gratitude than La Fayette. A stranger and a French- 
man, — born to wealth and honors, — refusing preferment and distinction at home, — 
at his own expense he fitted out an armament for the relief of the American col- 
onies, when their cause seemed most gloomy and despairing, and came to assist us 
with his counsels, purse, and troops. Arriving in Charleston, in 1777, he soon 
joined the army with a major general's commission, which he accepted from 
Congress only on the conditions that he should be allowed to serve at his 
own expense, and be permitted to enter the army as a volunteer. In vain the 
courts of London and Versailles protested against his expedition ; in vain they 
attempted to intercept his passage — a movement as brilliant as it was successful ; 
— an armed force was sent out to the West Indies to arrest his course in vain ; he 
eluded all pursuit, reached his destination in safety, with " Cur non?" flying at his 
mast head — a worthy ensign for such a man. 

La Fayette was then but twenty years of age ; but his judgment was so profound, 
and his courage so cool, that the prudent and sagacious Washington confided to 
him the post of difl[iculty and of danger, and never found his confidence misplaced. 
He remained in America two years, sharing freely in all the hardships of our 



48 MARQ[JISDE LA FAYETTE. 

suffering army, and returned lo Paris, bearing honorable scars, and the grateful 
thanks of all the colonists. The Continental Congress voted him a sword and 
thanks, which were presented by Benjamin Franklin. He remained in his native 
land two years, actively engaged in the affairs of his government, and using all 
his influence, in conjunction with Franklin, then American minister to the court 
of Versailles, in behalf of the American colonies. He soon returned to the field 
of strife in America, and after a brilliant campaign, had the satisfaction of seeing the 
British forces compelled to surrender at Yorktown, and the boastful Cornwallib 
give up his sword to the hero Washington. 

Again La Fayette received the thanks of Congress, and the benisons of the col- 
onies, and was sent home in triumph in an American frigate. The following year, 
he paid a visit to the United States, and was received amidst the most grateful and 
expressive manifestations of the people ; his progress through the states being a con- 
tinued /e7e. He was received by Congress with great ceremony, and Virginia placed 
his bust in her capitol, and presented one of a similar kind to the city of Paris. 

On his return to France, he at once entered upon the arena of political strife, 
already open in that unhappy country, in which his patriotism and love of liberty 
doomed him to confiscation and prison, and nearly to loss of life. Many of his 
family laid their necks beneath the keen edge of the guillotine ; others, his wife 
among them, were shut up in gloomy dungeons. At length the dismal hinges of 
his prison doors turned once more, and the worn and weary patriot tasted again 
the free air of heaven. As soon as it was known that he was free, the most urgent 
invitations were sent to him to visit the United States, " that country dear to his 
heart." Congress, in the most honorable manner, seconded this voice of the people, 
and placed the seventy-four gunship, the North Carolina, at his disposal. Declining, 
however, the honor, he embarked with his son in one of the regular packets, the 
Cadmus, and reached New York on the 25th of August, 1824. 

Never was a reception so imposing and so spontaneous. One general shout of 
«' Welcome ! welcome ! " burst from all lips, prompted by every heart. The gray- 
haired men and women who lived in those terrible scenes which in the pride of his 
early manhood he shared, and in which he poured out his gold as dust, and his 
blood as water, clasped his knees in tearful joy ; and their children, now grown 
themselves to lusty sires and fair dames, swelled the paean of his praise with such 
hosannas as only a ransomed people can offer; while the youth and children gazed in 
silent awe on the ^^good and great La Fayette,^'' and clapped their hands and opened 
their throats in loud and long huzzas. From city to city, from town to town, from 
hamlet to hamlet, through the entire borders of the land, for the space of a full 
year, he journeyed, and the enthusiasm abated not a tittle. Valley and hill top 
echoed with his beloved name ; joy and thanks rung out from every spire and boomed 
from every piece of ordnance in the land. It was a spectacle for angels to smile 
upon, and patriots to rejoice in — to carry paleness to the brows of despots, and " to 
make the devils tremble." 

On returning to his native land, he again entered, heart and soul, into the great 
scenes which were then enacting there, always pleading for liberty, and doing what- 
ever lay in his power to establish it in the bosom of his country — suffering, laboring, 
sacrificing, praying for " his dear, dear France," until .Tune, 1834, when his earthly 
struggle closed, and he opened his eyes on " the glorious freedom of the sons of God." 




MAJOR GENERAL JOSEPH WARREN. 



rr^HIS brave revolutionary patriot, whose blood stains the soil of Bunker Hill. 
_L was the son of a respectable farmer of Roxbury. He was born in 1741. 
entered college in 1755, commenced the practice of medicine in 1762, in 1775 
received the appointment of major general in the continental army, and the same 
year, on the ever-glorious 17th of June, 1775, sealed with his blood the protest of 
freemen against the usurpations of tyranny. 

Had Warren lived, it is easy to perceive that he would have been among the 
most conspicuous of that holy band who pledged " their lives, their fortunes, and 
their sacred honor " to the cause of freedom in the New World. Among many of 
his manly traits of character, we have room to speak only of his indomitabk 
courage. He not only knew no fear, but he seemed to court danger for the'ver^ 
love of it, as the following anecdote will show : — 

The "Boston Massacre" took place on the 5th of March, 1770. Its anniversary 
had been celebrated by an oration for three years. The British residents of Boston 
had become incensed at the free spirit in which that bloody act was discussed in 
these orations, and in 1775, several British officers openly declared that it should 
be at the peril of his life, should any patriot attempt to pronounce an oration or 



50 MAJOR GENERAL JOSEPH WARREN. 

the coming anniversary. This threat roused the fiery spirit of Warren, and although 
he had ollieiated only the year before, he requested permission to assume the peril 
and the honor. He received the appointment, and notice was speedily given to 
that effect. Public expectation was on tiptoe, and on the day appointed, the " Old 
South " was crammed to its utmost capacity. A large number of British officers 
were present, some of whom occupied the pulpit steps, and even the pulpit itself. 
At the time appointed, it was found impossible to penetrate the densely packed 
masses that filled the aisles and doorways, and Warren, with his friends, was 
obliged to enter through the pulpit window by a ladder. The officers were struck 
by his cool intrepidity, and involuntarily yielded up the pulpit, and suffered him to 
assume his proper place. As he came forward, with a calm brow and flashing eye, 
he appeared the very impersonation of moral courage and personal bravery. It 
was a moment of intensest excitement. Stillness that was palpable rested on all 
lips. Many a heart palpitated with wildest enthusiasm, and many ceased to beat, 
overwhelmed by the grandeur of the scene ; while faces pale as ashes spoke an 
intensity of emotion which mocked the poor medium of words. 

When he opened his lips, his voice was firm and unfaltering, while its deep and 
almost unearthly tones told how fully the spirit was stirred within him. Soon his 
voice rose, and warming with his theme, in tones of thunder he poured out the 
vials of his wrath upon the actors in the bloody tragedy of March 5, 1770; and 
hurled defiance in the very teeth of those who, but a few hours before, had threat- 
ened his life, but who were now awed before the majesty of his sublime courage. 

It was the same unflinching bravery that prompted him, although holding a 
major general's commission, to decline the proposition of the veteran Prescott to 
rake the command of that sanguinary field, on the 17th of June, 1775, and led him 
to assume a volunteer's position in the ranks, where he fought, musket in hand, 
until the battle was lost, and his brave compatriots were driven from the ground. 
Even then he was among the very last to quit the breastwork, and fell only a few 
yards from it, fighting to the last. 

No wonder that our independence was achieved, when such spirits leagued for it. 
All the armies of the earth could not have conquered the invincible spirit of 
freedom that reigned in such bosoms. What a boon have they bequeathed to us ! 
What a debt of gratitude do we owe to their blessed memories I 




ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON was born in the island of Nevis, in the British 
West Indies, on the 11th of January, 1757. He was of Scotch blood on the 
paternal, and of Gallic on the maternal side. He lost his mother when a child, and 
his education was intrusted to a Presbyterian clergyman, by the name of Knox, of 
the island of St. Croix. At twelve years of age, he was placed in the counting room 
of a merchant of that island, where his talents and ambition soon displayed them- 
selves. The following prophecy of the future man is from a letter written to a 
fellow-clerk before he was thirteen: ^^ I contemn the g-rovelling- condition of a clerk, to 
which mi/ fortune condemns me, and ivould willinghj risk my life, though not my charac- 
ter, to exalt my station; I mean, to prepare the way for futurity P 

In 1772, Hamilton came to New York, and at the close of 1773, entered Columbia 
College, where he made "extraordinary displays of richness of genius and energy of 
mind." It was during his college life that the country was roused to the consider- 
ation of British aggression and American independence. He took strong and 
decided revolutionary grounds, and wrote and spoke in so clear and forcible a 
manner as to attract the attention of the wisest minds engaged in that controversy. 
Dr. Cooper, principal of the college, and several others of the ablest tory writers, 



52 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 

were confounded by "the profound principles, able reasoning, and sound policy" (/f 
his essays, and would not believe that they were the productions of a youth of 
seventeen. He also joined a volunteer company of militia while in college, and 
made himself familiar with all the tactics and theory of war. 

In 1776, Hamilton was appointed to the command of a company of artillery, and 
from that time up to 1781, he was in constant, active service, mostly as aid to the 
commander-in-chief. In that capacity he won the admiration and love of all his 
brother officers, and became, in Washington's own words, "his principal and most 
confidential aid." General Washington intrusted him with the most delicate and 
difficult diplomatic duties, and with nearly all his important correspondence. He 
rendered most essential aid, by his advice and counsel, in restoring the confidence of 
the army, and improving the currency. Indeed, there is scarcely a plan which was 
ad()|)ted by Congress during the administration of Washington which does not 
bear the mark of his mighty genius. 

In 1780, he married the second daughter of Major General Schuyler, and devoted 
his attention to the law. He rose rapidly in his profession, and soon stood at the 
head of the New York bar. He did not, however, retire from the arena of political 
strife, and in 1782, took his seat in Congress, where his genius and sound common 
sense were speedily felt, and "the proceedings of Congress immediately assumed a 
new and more vigorous tone and character," He retired from Congress in 1783, and 
assumed the practice of his profession in New York, where his clear mind and lucid 
eloquence won for him the admiration of all. 

But the services of such a rnati could not be well spared by the country at such a 
time. In 1786, he was sent to the General Assembly of New York, and was chosen 
by that body one of the three New York delegates to the General Convention 
recommended by Congress to be holden in Philadelphia, in May, 1787. His services 
as a member of that august body were exceedingly valuable; and when, on the 
recommendation of the convention, the constitution was presented to the people for 
their adoption, Hamilton, in conjunction with Mr. Jay and Mr. Madison, commenced 
and completed that series of essays, composing the two volumes of the Federalist, 
as profound in their logic as they are brilliant in execution and patriotic in spirit. 
Of these eighty-five papers, Mr. Jay wrote five, Mr. Madison twenty, and Mr. Ham- 
ilton the balance. 

On the adoption of the constitution, Mr. Hamilton was called by Washington to 
the head of the Treasury department, where for five years he exhibited the same zeal 
and fitness for office that had always marked his career. 

From this period until his untimely death he divided his time between the duties 
of his profession and those of public life, awaking general admiration by the bril- 
liancy of his talents, and winning the respect and esteem of all by his many amiable 
virtues. 

On the 12th of July, 1804, he fell in mortal combat by the hand of Aaron Burr, 
and " all America and Europe mourned his untimely fate." 




SAMUEL ADAMS. 



A MONG the names of the brave band of patriots who first offered resistance to 
J7\. the encroachments of British power on the liberties of the English colonies in 
America, none is more reverently and affectionately cherished in the American heart 
than that of the patriarch Samuel Adams. None bore in his bosom a stoater heart, 
and none raised a stronger arm to resist the oppressor. He had not the suaviter in 
modo of Hancock, his compeer and fellow-laborer, nor the genius of Hamilton; but 
for stern, unbending republicanism, and unflinching devotion to the cause of free- 
dom, none exceeded him. With a sound judgment he combined unyielding firm- 
ness of will, and nothing could dislodge him from the strongholds of his opinion. 
No man had more individuality of character, and no seductions or bribes from friend 
or foe could reach his integrity. Governor Hutchinson, in reply to the question from 
England, why the friendship of Samuel Adams was not secured by the gifts of 
office, replies, " Such is the ubstinacij and injiexible disposition of the man, that he can 
never be conciliated by any office or gift whatever^ Yet he was always poor, and 
was by no means a stranger to necessity. 

Such a man could not escape the favor of his friends and the notice of his ene- 
mies. His great mental powers were speedily and constantly called into exercise by 
<he })atriots, while his contemptuous spurning of British bribes of gold and power 



54 S A M U E L A D A M S 

awakened the bitterest malice of his and America's enemies. His name was a 
Shibboleth to the struggling colonists; cherished, loved, and uttered by them with 
reverence ; while with their oppressors it was dreaded, hated, and denounced. When, 
seeking to conciliate the outraged patriots, a general amnesty was proposed by the 
colonial government, and pardon was freely offered to all who would submit, the 
names of Samuel Adams and John Hancock were excepted, as their offences were 
of "too flagitious a character to admit of any other consideration than that of con- 
dign punishment.'' " Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad," runs the 
old proverb. Probably no single act of the infamous government of iNIassachnsetts 
Bay did so much to precipitate the events of the Revolution as the proscription of 
these noble patriots; and what was intended by their vindictive enemies to "damn 
them to everlasting fame," placed on their brows a crown of glory which shall for- 
ever outshine the brightest diadem worn by kingly head. 

Samuel Adams was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, September 27, 1722, and was 
graduated at Harvard College in 1740, at eighteen years of age; and, at that early 
period, wrote several able articles in favor of "the right of resisting the magistrates, 
if the liberties of the commonwealth cannot be otherwise preserved;" a question pre- 
pared by himself at the time of his graduation. On quitting college, he commenced 
the study of the law, to which profession his father designed him ; but maternal in- 
fluence changed his purpose, and he entered into commercial pursuits, where the 
capital which had been provided for the purpose was speedily absorbed. Trade, 
evidently, was not his forte; and the force of circumstances, together with his un- 
conquerable love of liberty, soon convinced him and the world that the arena of 
politics was his natural sphere. 

After acting in many capacities as the servant of his townspeople, — Mr. Adams 
was now a resident of Boston, — he was, in 1765, elected to the legislature, of which 
he was a member for ten years. On the dissolution of the old charter, he was elected 
a member of the Provincial Convention ; and, in 1774, he was sent to the General 
Congress, where, by his eloquence and burning patriotism, he exerted a mighty influ- 
ence in behalf of independence. On the adoption of the new constitution of Mas- 
sachusetts, he was elected to the Senate ; over which body he was at once called to 
preside, which duty he performed with dignity and efficiency for several years. In 
1789, he was chosen lieutenant governor, and on the death of his great compeer, 
Hancock, in 1794, he succeeded him as governor, which office he held for three terms, 
when he retired to private life. He did not live long to enjoy the retirement he had 
so much coveted, and for the enjoyment of which a competency, falling to him late 
in life, would have greatly aided. He died on the 2d of October, 1803, at the great 
age of eighty-two. 

We cannot more appropriately bring to a close this hasty notice of this great man 
than to give his reply to Colonel Fenton, the emissary of General Gage, sent ex- 
pressly for the purpose of buying up the " obstinate rebel." After offering every flat- 
tering and tempting bribe in the shape of office and gold, and more than intimating 
that his liberty, if not his life, hung on his reply, — " Go," he said, raising himself to 
his full height, and putting on an attitude of proud and heroic defiance — "go tell 
Governor Gage that my peace has long been made with the King of kings, and that 
it is the advice of Samuel Adams to him, no Ioniser to insult the feelings of an al- 
ready exasperated 'peopleP 




JOHN HANCOCK. 



JOHN HANCOCK, the first governor under the present constitution of Mas- 
sachusetts, was the son of Rev. John Hancock, of Braintree, in Massachusetts, 
and was born in that towia — now Quincy — in the year 1737. In 1754, he was 
graduated at Harvard College, at the age of seventeen, with no particular mark of 
distinction. On leaving college, he entered the counting-house of his uncle, i.5<e of 
the wealthiest merchants of Boston, where he remained six years. He then went 
abroad for four years; and returned home to enter upon the immense fortune of his 
uncle, who, dying, had made him his heir. 

Mr. Hancock was blessed with a pleasing person and winning address, which, 
with his great wealth, made him at once a man of consideration, and being a 
decided ivhi^^ and staking every thing on the die of the Revolution, he became 
one of the most popular leaders of that glorious struggle, and one of the most ob- 
noxious to tory authority. When General Gage proclaimed "a general pardon to 
the rebels," Hancock and Samuel Adams were excepted, "as their offences were of 
too flagitious a nature to admit of any other consideration than the most condign 
punishment." 

At this time, Mr. Hancock was president of the Continental Congress. This 



5G JOHN HANCOCK. 

was in 1774. In this year, he delivered an oration on the anniversary of the "Boston 
Massacre," whic-h established his reputation as a true friend of his country. About 
this time, also, he declined the honor of acting as counsellor to the governor, as he 
had before declined a military commission offered him by General Gage. These acts 
greatly increased his popularity with the patriots, and irritated the tories exceedingly. 
While president of this illustrious Congress, in 177i5, he placed his name at the head 
of that immortal paper which declared to the world our independence, where it stands 
in that round, striking hand which exhibits a bold and fearless spirit, and a resolution 
never to subscribe to any compromise with tyranny or oppression. 

As we have seen, in 1780, John Hancock was chosen first governor under the new 
constitution of his native state, which otlice he continued to hold, with the exception 
of two years, — in which Mr. Bowdoin served in that capacity, — until his 'death, in 
October, 1793, at the age of fifty-five. 

Possessed of all "the means and appliances to boot," Governor Hancock lived in 
a style of princely magnificence ; and having a heart devising liberal things, with "a 
hand which knew not how to shut itself," his abode was the very ne plus ultra of a 
noble and brilliant hospitality. Punctilious in all matters of etiquette, fastidious, 
even, in the matter and manner of his toilet, and blessed with an exquisite taste in 
all his household arrangements, his appointments were mi fait, his viands the richest, 
his wines the rarest and most delicate, and his guests the very elite. But his door was 
never shut on the people, and the poor were never sent empty-handed and in sorrow 
from his door. If he had his weak points — as who that reads has not? — his noble 
patriotism, his generous benevolence, his upright life lie on them as a thick mantle, 
and we are gladly blind to their existence. 

To such as would like to see a picture of those ancient days, we present the fol- 
lowing, from the graphic pen of the author of " Familiar Letters on Public Charac- 
ters," " taken when the governor was forty-five years old." 

" Governor Hancock was nearly six feet tall, of thin person, stooping a little, and 
apparently enfeebled by age. His manners were very gracious, of the old style of 
dignified complaisance. His face had been very handsome. His dress was adapted 
quite as much to be ornamental as useful. Gentlemen generally wore wigs when 
abroad, and caps when at home. At this time, (June, 1782,) about noon, Hancock 
was dressed in a red velvet cap, within which was one of fine linen, turned up over 
the lower edge of the velvet about three inches. He wore a blue damask gown, lined 
with silk; a white stock, a white satin embroidered waistcoat, black satin small- 
clothes, white silk stockings, and red morocco slippers. It was a general practice in 
genteel families to have a tankard of punch made in the evening, and placed in a 
cooler when the season required it. Visitors were invited to partake of it. At this 
visit, Hancock took from the cooler, standing on the hearth, a full tankard, and drink- 
ing first himself, then handed it to his guests. At his table might be seen all classes, 
from grave and dignified clergy down to the gillcd in song, narrative, anecdote, and 
wit, with whom 

'Noiseless falls the foot of time that only falls on flow'^i-s.'" 




GOVERNOR HUTCHINSON. 



T is matter for felicitation that the bitter and unnatural feeling towards Great 
Britain, which grew out of our Revolution, is fast dying away, and that Amer- 
icans are becoming able to discriminate betw^n the cruel and unjust policy of- the 
government and the fidelity of many individuals who were connected with it. No 
epithet has become rrtore odious to American ears than that of tory ; and it is not 
yet fully divested of the hated definition given to it in the times of our Revolution. 
" an enemy to freedom, and an abetter of despotism." 

The subject of this memoir was exceedingly unfortunate in the time of his birth. 
Had he lived either a half century earlier or later, his fame had been equal to almost 
any of the great men of our history. His toryism was loyalty to his government, 
and not enmity to freedom ; and had that government triumphed, he would have 
been glorified as a hero and a patriot, while "the rebels" would still have been 
rebels, and suffered the execration ever heaped upon the unsuccessful, fomenters of 
revolution. ' 

Governor Hutchinson was a man of great learning, probity, honor, and capabil- 
ities, and, previous to his appointment to the governorship of the colony, was exceed- 
ingly efficient and popular in the discharge of the duties of the various offices to 



58 GOVERNOR HUTCHINSON. 

which he was appointed. The State of Massachusetts has occasion to remember 
his services in her behalf with gratitude, as well in respect to his powerful influence in 
the settlement of that wearisome and diflicnlt question of boundary between Massa- 
chusetts and New York, as in the deep interest he took in colonial history, and the 
valuable manuscripts he left behind him relating to that subject. But, unfor-. 
tunately for his memory, his sympathies were with his government, and he was 
guilty of the sin of fidelity to his oath, — he tvas a lory. 

Governor Thomas Hutchinson was a native of Boston, and born in 1711. His 
great precocity was the subject of much remark, and of just pride to his father, the 
Hon. Thomas Hutchinson. At the early age of twelve, he was admitted to Harvard 
College, and received his bachelor's degree in 1727, when only sixteen years old. 
After leaving college, he entered into mercantile business; but not succeeding in this, 
he turned his attention to the law. Such was his character for uprightness and 
ability, that his townsmen elected him to the important and responsible office of 
selectman when he was but twenty-seven ; and, at this early age, he was selected as 
their agent in very important business in England, which duty he performed to the 
entire satisfaction of the town. The same year he was chosen representative to the 
General Court, where he remained until 1747, the last three years of which he was 
honored by being called to preside over that dignified body, of which no member was 
more efficient than he. In 1750, he was elected a member of his Majesty's Council ; 
in 1752, was appointed Judge of Probate ; in 1758, Lieutenant Governor ; in 1760, 
he received the appointment of Chief Justice, — holding at one time the offices of 
Judge of Probate, Councillor, Chief Justice, and Lieutenant Governor. 

Hitherto he had been borne on the tide of popular favor. But now came the 
trying times of the Revolution. The " Stamp Act," the introduction of British 
troops " to awe the insurgents," the entrance of the famO' s tea ships into Boston 
Harbor, — these, and other arbitrary acts of the home government, compelled every 
man to take sides with either the Crown or the Revolution. As has been seen, Gov- 
ernor Hutchinson decided on the former. The result was, that " Boston became too 
hot for him ;" and, in June, 1774, he sailed, by royal permission, for England, where 
he lived retired from public life until June, 1780, when he died, being sixty-nine years 
of age. 

During the last year of Hutchinson's stay in Boston, he became exceedingly bitter 
towards the Revolution and the "insurgents," and he recommended and adopted 
many measures highly obnoxious to the citizens and the colony generally. The 
enraged populace gutted his house, destroying his furniture, library, and paintings, 
and cast on him every possible indignity. On his return to England, an attempt 
was made to impeach him, but the lords of the privy council sent to the crown a 
report highly favorable to his cause, and the attempt failed. He, however, fell into 
disrepute with all parties, and led the remnant of his life in neglected retirement. 

The history of the colonies which Governor Hutchinson left behind is an invalu- 
able record of the times he lived in. It is held in high repute for the accuracy of its 
facts and dates, as well as for the faithful impartiality of its notices of the men who 
figured in the early history of New England. 




JOHN ADAMS 



JOHN ADAMS, the second President of the United States, was born in Quincy 
Massachusetts, on the 19th of October, (old style,) 1735 ; was graduated at 
Harvard University in 1755 ; was admitted to the bar in 1758 ; about this time wrote 
his celebrated "Essay on the Canon and Federal Law;" in 1766, removed to Bos- 
ton; was chosen Councillor in 1773; elected to the Continental Congress in 1774, 
of which he was one of the most efficient members, and was associated with Jeffer- 
son, Franklin, Sherman, and Livingston as a committee to draft a Declaration of 
Independence, and was "the Colossus of support" to that immortal instrument in 
that august body. The same year, he was placed on a committee to wait on Lord 
Howe in reference to the condition of the country; where, being received by his 
lordship with an imposing military display, and being told that they could not be 
received as a committee of Congress, but only as private gentlemen, Adams replied, 
" You may view me in what light you please, sir, except that of a British subject." 
While in Congress, he served as a member of ninety different committees, and chair- 
man of twenty-five. In 1778, he was appointed commissioner to France, and, return- 
ing to America the following year, was chosen a member of the convention called to 
frame a constitution for Massachusetts under the new form of national government. 

5 



rO J O H N A D A M S . 

lie drew up the report of the committee chosen for that purpose, — of which he was 
t hairman, — which was adopted, and under which Massachusetts, for so many years, 
prospered and grew into greatness. The same year, he received the appointment of 
minister plenipotentiary "to negotiate a treaty of peace and a treaty of commerce 
with Great Britain;" and the following year was appointed to the same office at Hol- 
land, from which he was suddenly summoned to Paris to consult on a general peace 
with the commissioners of Austria, Russia, and France, which, after many difficul- 
ties, was effected in 1783. In 1785, Mr. Adams was appointed minister plenipoten- 
tiary to the court of St. James, where his profound diplomatic acquirements imparted 
dignity to his mission, and secured to his country many important advantages. At 
his own request, he was permitted to resign his charge in 1788, and the same year 
was elected Vice President of the United States. 

On the retirement of Washington, in 1797, Mr. Adams was chosen his successor, 
by seventy-one of the electoral votes, Mr. Jefferson having sixty-eight. Mr. Jefferson 
succeeded him in 1801, and he retired to his farm, in Quincy, where he spent the 
remainder of his life. In the year 1820, he was chosen a member of the convention 
to revise the constitution of his native state, — that instrument eminently the work 
of his own mind and pen, — and in the same year, at the great age of eighty-five, 
voted as elector of president and vice president. 

Mr. Adams left his mark upon the institutions of his country, as well as on those 
of Europe, and lived to behold the fulfilment of the predictions he uttered when the 
colonies were struggling against the iron-handed despotism of Great Britain. In a 
letter to his wife, dated July 5, 1776, he writes thus : " Yesterday, the greatest ques- 
tion was decided that was ever debated in America; and greater, perhaps, never was 
and never will be decided among men. A resolution was passed, without one dis- 
senting colony, ' That these United States are, and of right ought to be, free and 
independent states.' The day is passed. The 4th of July, 1776, will be a mem- 
orable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe it will be celebrated by 
succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be celebrated 
with pomp, shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one 
end of the continent to the other, from this time forward, forever. You will think 
me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aw^are of the blood, and 
toil, and treasure it will cost to maintain this declaration, and support and defend 
these states; yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of light and glory. I can 
see that the end is worth more than all the means; and that posterity will triumph, 
although you and I may rue, which I hope we shall not." 

Mr. Adams was among the few of that brave band — who cast "their lives, their 
fortunes, and their sacred honors" on the die of the Revolution — who was permitted 
to live to witness Ihe permanent establishment of the institutions they bequeathed 
to their children .and posterity. He lived to see his country great and powerful, and 
carried successfully through a war with its old enemy, the haughtiest and most in- 
vincible nation on the earth. He lived to see his son succeed to the honors which a 
grateful country had bestowed on himself, — until, (as if Heaven-appointed,) on the 
ftflielh anniversary of his country's independence, with the glorious words trembling 
on his dying lips, " Indkpendbnce ForeverI" hand in hand with his old compatriot 
Jefferson, he passed away amid the firing of guns, the ringing of bells, and the re- 
joicings of an emancipated people. 



««^ 




H ,x\'I% 



PATRICK HENRY. 



ri^HlS brilliant and powerful orator, whom every American names with pride, 
JL was born in Virginia, on the 29th of May, 1736. His boyhood was as un- 
promising as could be well imagined. He was a vagrant truant, hating his books, 
and delighting in nothing so much as his angle-rod and his gun. At the age oJ 
fifteen, his father finding it difficult to meet the expenses of a large and still growing 
family, Patrick was placed behind the counter of a country store. Here he re- 
mained a year, when his father set him up in business in company with an elder 
brother, more idle and negligent, if possible, than himself. The result was as might 
have been supposed — bankruptcy in a short space of time. 

Young Henry was possessed of an amiable and sensitive spirit, and although too 
indolent to rouse himself to any great effort, yet his soul was galled at his want of 
success, and the inevitable ruin which stared him in the face. As he was confined 
to his store, and could not seek relief in the out-door sports in which he so greatly 
delighted, he sought to solace his s))irit with his flute and such books as fell in his 
way. In this way, he acquired a love for reading, which grew into a passion, and 
became the germ of his future greatness. From childhood, he took great delight in 
the study of character ; and it used to be one of his pastimes to get together in his 



62 PATRICK HENRY. 

store a dozen men of the neighborhood, and excite them to discussion, and then 
silently watch every expression and word and motion, and paint their characters on 
his own brain, and fancy how they would severally act under given circumstances. 
This also became the end of his reading — the study of human nature. Little did 
he then think of the mighty power of scrutiny of human character he was unfold- 
ing and nourishing in his soul, and which in after life enabled him to read so readily 
the tablet of character, hidden to nearly all other eyes, in the bosom of its possessor. 
When his company was dull and silent, he would rouse them with accounts of 
Tchat he had read and seen, or entertain them with the creations of a wild but 
manly imagination ; and when they were sufficiently excited, would resume his 
taciturnity and observation. 

This was the early self-training of Patrick Henry. Here he began to develop 
those mighty gifts, which in after life constituted him, as Jefferson declared, "one of 
the greatest orators that ever lived." " Never was there a man, in any age," says 
Wirt, " who possessed, in a more eminent degree, the lucid and nervous style of 
argument, the command of the most beautiful imagery, or that language of passion 
which burns from soul to soul." 

About this period, with his usual recklessness, at the early age of eighteen, he 
married and went on a small plantation, where with a couple of slaves he tilled the 
soil for two years. Wearying of the sweat of labor, notwithstanding his past 
disastrous experience, he converted all his means into ready money, and embarked 
once more in trade — once more to run a rapid race into bankruptcy and ruin. 

In absolute despair, he determined to study the law — a study in which all prog- 
nosticated failure. In six weeks from the time of entering the office, he passed his 
examination, astonishing his examiners, not by his acquaintance with the law, 
but by the strength of his intellect, and the brilliancy of his genius. Having 
obtained his license, his success was small for three years, during which he 
suffered all the horrors of poverty ; when an event brought him into notoriety, 
and placed him at once at the head of the Virginia bar. 

For a long time, tobacco had been a medium of exchange in Virginia, as 
wampum amongst the Indians, and the price per pound was fixed by law. The 
salaries of the clergy were generally paid in tobacco. As might have been fore- 
seen, the fluctuations in prices led to much discussion and discontent. The subject 
became an engrossing one, and the colony was divided, a large portion of them 
siding with the clergy, and the balance in favor of the legislature. After much 
angry discussion in public assemblies, and through the press, the cause was brought 
to an issue before the courts of law. Patrick Henry, then about twenty-seven years 
old, pleaded against the clergy, with such wonderful effect, as at once to astonish 
every body, and to establish his reputation as a public pleader and orator. 

From this point, the life of Patrick Henry is brilliantly connected with the 
history of his country. Jefferson says of him, that " he did more than any other 
man to put the ball of revolution in motion." He died on the 6th day of June, 
1799, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, with an unshaken reliance upon the Infi- 
nite, for whom he ever entertained the most profound reverence and love — a firm 
believer in virtue as the only basis of character and happiness. 




JOHN JAY. 



PIERRE JAY, the great-grandfather of the subject of this memoir, was one of 
those persecuted Huguenots who were driven from France by the cruel revocation 
of the edict of Nantes. He fled to England. His son, Augustus, barely escaping with 
his life, came to America, and settled in New York. Here he married, and lived in 
prosperity until 1751, when he died, leaving one son and three daughters. This son, 
named Peter, was the father of John. He was a merchant of great respectability in 
New York, and, having acquired a large fortune, retired to an estate on Long Island. 

John Jay, the eighth child of Peter, was born in the city of New York, December 
12, 1745. He was graduated at Columbia College, 1764, with the highest honors of 
his class, and, in 1768, was admitted to the bar with the most brilliant prospects. A 
contemporary thus speaks of him : " His talents and virtues gave at that period pleas- 
ing indications of future eminence. He was remarkable for strong reasoning powers, 
comprehensive views, indefatigable application, and uncommon firmness of mind." 

Mr. Jay would doubtless huve risen to great eminence in his profession had he 
been permitted to pursue it; but the political horizon was already lowering and 
threatening, and he could not be indifferent to the great struggle for human freedom 



64 / JOHN JAY 

which had even then eommencpd. He joined the noble brotherhood who leagued 
for the overthrow of tyranny, and stood shoulder to shoulder with Jefferson, the 
Adamses, Henry, Hamilton, and the whole host of patriots who took their lives in 
their hands and "determined to sink or swim with their country." 

Mr. Jay was married in 1774, to Sarah, daughter of William Livingston, Esq., sub- 
sequently Governor of New Jersey. In the same year, he was elected one of the 
delegates to the first Congress, and, when he took his seat, was the youngest member 
on the floor of that house. Yet such were the gravity of his manner, the profound- 
ness of his knowledge, and ripeness of his judgment, that he was appointed to some 
of the most important committees of that august body. He wTote that " Address to 
the People of Great Britain," which the gifted Jefferson pronounced to be " the pro- 
duction of the finest pen in America," and this without knowing the author. He wrote 
several other addresses adopted by Congress, all of which bear the stamp of true 
genius, burning patriotism, and great comprehensiveness. They are as elegant as 
they are methodical and profound. 

In 1777, New York having adopted a constitution under the new order of things, 
Mr. Jay was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Between his resigna- 
tion in the Congress of 1774 and this appointment, he was constantly and actively 
employed in the most important public duties, and rendered very essential aid to his 
country. This was by far the gloomiest period in the history of our country, and, 
while many trembled, and thousands fainted, he was one of that immortal band of 
heroes who never faltered, never despaired. Glory to those hearts of oak who bore 
the ark of our liberties fearlessly, steadily, safely through the terrible storms of that 
unequalled Revolution I 

On the " special occasion " of the controversy between New York and Vermont, 
Mr. Jay was elected to Congress, and took his seat in December, 1778, and was im- 
mediately called to preside over its deliberations. He resigned this office in Septem- 
ber, 1779, having received the appointment of minister plenipotentiary to Spain, on 
which mission he sailed in October of the same year. In 1782, he was appointed 
"commissioner to negotiate a peace with England," in company with Dr. Franklin, 
John Adams, and Mr. Laurens. In all these duties, — most of which were delicate and 
difficult, and many of which were exceedingly vexatious and annoying, — Mr. Jay 
showed himself equal to his task, and acquitted himself with great credit and patri- 
otism. It was mainly owing to his firmness that the recognition of the independence 
of the United States was extorted from Great Britain. His health having become 
impaired, he resigned his commission, and after spending some time at the watering- 
places in England, and in the refined society of Paris, he returned home in IMay, 1784, 
when his services were immediately required in the capacity of Secretary of Foreign 
Affairs, in which office he labored until the adoption of the new constitution, when 
President Washington asked him to select any otlice he might desire. He accord- 
ingly solicited and obtained the appointment of Chief Justice of the United States. 

In 1794, Mr. Jay was appointed envoy extraordinary to Great Britain, to negotiate 
a treaty of commerce, which he effected with great skill and fidelity to his country. 
On his return, he was elected Governor of New York, which office he felt bound to 
accept, and accordingly resigned that of chief justice. He served in that capacity 
until 1801, when he retired to private life, firmly resisting all overtures from Congress 
and his friends. He died in May, 1829. 




^^^- v<:x . : 



MAETHA WASHINGTON 



/FARTHA, the beloved wife of President Washington, whose maiden name 
was Dandridge, was of Welsh descent, and was born in New Kent county, 
in the colony of Virginia, some time in the month of May, 1732. Very little is 
known of the early life of Miss Dandridge, except that she was exceedingly fair to 
behold, fascinating in her manners, amiable in disposition, and the reigning belle 
at Williamsburg, where the English governor and his satellites held their court. It 
is not to be supposed that she was destitute of admirers among the young gallani?; 
who figured in " the governor's court ; " but she selected for her companion Colont-I 
Daniel Parke Custis, a man of middle age, possessing many manly charms, and 
great wealth. How much this latter qualification affected her choice, we shall leave 
to the casuistry of our fair readers. Tradition and the historian unite in saying that 
the match was one of affection. She was but seventeen when they were married, 
in 1749. The fruits of this marriage were four children, one of whom died in in- 
fancy. Colonel Custis lived but a few years in the enjoyments of his happy home, 
and died in the prime of life, leaving his young and beautiful widow one of th(> 
wealthiest in all Virginia. 

In 1758, Colonel Washington was riding express to Williamsbm-g, beariii; 



06 MARTHA WASHINGTON. 

important detspatches to the royal council. His route lay through New Kent. 
There he encountered an old friend, who endeavored, by every persuasive art, to 
detain him over night. But the punctilious Washington was proof to all seduc- 
tions, until his friend offered to introduce him to a young and beautiful widow, 
(hen residing under his roof. After some awkward and half-sincere protests, the 
gallant colonel consented to tarry an hour or two, stipulating that he should then 
be permitted to depart, and make up his delay by travelling far into the night. Hour 
after hour sped on, and still the handsome cavalier loitered; and the sun had risen 
high in the heavens before his astonished body servant, the faithful Bishop, received 
the command, " forward." Speeding on his way, he despatched his business with 
the council ; and hastening back to the " White House," — the residence of Mrs. 
Custis, — he surrendered at discretion to the fascinating widow, whose bright and 
irresistible artillery had completely carried by storm the heart of the gifted colonel. 
With much pomp and magnificence they were married, and Colonel Washington 
immediately took his interesting bride and her children to his estate on the Potomac, 
(he now world-renowned and classic Mount Vernon. The record of this marriage 
is utterly lost, but it is supposed to have taken place in the year 1759. 

Washington and his lady were tenderly attached to each other, and this devotion 
continued throughout their long union of nearly a half century. She shared 
with him all his anxieties, and was his consoling angel amidst the trying and ad- 
verse scenes of the Revolution ; and when, at length, victory perched on the Amer- 
ican arms, and " the great, the good, the noble Father of his Country " was loaded 
with the highest honors that a grateful people could bestow, she stood proudly, yet 
tearfully, by his side, and shared his triumph too. 

Lady Washington presided at the presidential mansion, during the administra- 
tion of her noble spouse, with equal grace and dignity, and, in the retirement of 
Mount Vernon, assumed and discharged the matronly duties of housekeeper with 
fidelity and ease. Absolutely declining all further public cares, Washington and his 
lady looked forward to a few years of quiet and luxurious retirement amidst the 
rural scenes of their beloved Mount Vernon. But the summons to depart came sud- 
denly to the veteran soldier, and he left the loving and faithful sharer of his toils 
and triumphs broken-hearted and alone. For two years she presided still at the des- 
olated mansion where she had experienced so much real enjoyment, moving about 
with the same dignity and alertness, but with a brow pinched and shaded with " a 
rooted sorrow," when she gladly hailed the grim messenger sent to call her to a 
blessed reunion with the beloved ones who had gone before to the land of rest, and 
bade adieu to " all of earth," with a serene faith in " Him in whom she had trusted, 
and whose service, for more than half a century, had been her joy and delight." 




THADDEUS KOSCIUSKO. 



AMONG the strangers whose sympathy led them to abandon home and ease to 
engage in the rough and perilous struggle for freedom which young Amer- 
ica had waged with old England, towards the close of the eighteenth century, 
Thaddeus Kosciusko occupied a conspicuous rank. Of handsome person, brave 
almost to rashness, of gentle and fascinating manners, and possessed, withal, of a 
nature that scorngd the thought of meanness, he endeared himself to his superiors 
and equals, and left behind him a memory fragrant and perennial. 

Kosciusko was born in Lithuania, Poland, in 1746. He belonged to one of the 
most ancient and noble families of that unhappy kingdom, whose fate, so sad and 
romantic, fills one of the darkest pages of history. After availing himself of the 
best preparatory means, he pursued his studies at the military school at Warsaw, 
and completed his education at Paris. It was in this city that he made the ac- 
quaintance of Dr. Franklin, from whom he learned the history of our country, and 
its struggle for independence. Fired with the story, his heart yearned to strike a blow 
for freedom, and he proposed to Franklin to offer his services to Washington, then 
commander-in-chief of the American continental army. Franklin, struck with the 



68 TH A DDE US KOSCIUSKO. 

noble bearing of the young Pole, gave him a letter to Washington, with which he 
immediately embarked for America. Presenting himself without ceremony at head- 
quarters, he handed the letter of Franklin to the illustrious Captain of the Revolution, 
who, on reading it, demanded of the patriotic Pole, " What do you seek here ? " "1 
came," was his brave reply, " to fight as a volunteer for American independence.'' 
" What can you do ? " asked his excellency. " Try me," was the laconic and compre- 
hensive reply of Kosciusko. Charmed with the frank and noble spirit of this young pil- 
grim to the shrine of Liberty, Washington immediately took him into his family, and 
made him his aid. From that time until the close of the war, he enjoyed the confi- 
dence of Washington, and commanded the respect and most sincere affection of the 
general's staff. 

The services of Kosciusko were invaluable to the American army. His great 
scientific attainments, and thorough knowledge of the science of engineering, were 
put into instant requisition, and Congress appointed him engineer, and conferred on 
him the title of colonel. In the autumn of 1777, Gates, having determined to fix 
and fortify his camp at Bemis's Heights, afterwards so famous in our revolutionary 
history, called Kosciusko to aid him in the work. 

After performing this service, Kosciusko was sent to West Point, on the Hudson, 
to superintend the erection of works of defence on those beautiful and commanding 
heights. And here, as was befitting, when the labors of his life were closed, a beau- 
tiful monument was erected to his memory by the students of the Military Academy 
afterwards established at that place. 

At the close of the war, Kosciusko returned to fight the battles of liberty in his 
native land, and was appointed major general, under the gallant Poniatowski. Here 
his bravery and judgment begot him much credit. 

In 1794, a new revolution swept over ill-fated Poland. In the midst of that dread- 
ful storm, Kosciusko was called to assume the helm of the ship of state, and was 
appointed dictator, with full and unrestricted powers. In the exercise of this tre- 
mendovis commission, he verified the confidence of his friends, although he failed to 
secure liberty to his country. Russian power was — as it has ever since been — too 
great to be successfully resisted, and the chain was once more riveted on poor, bleed- 
ing Poland. Kosciusko, himself severely wounded, overpowered by numbers, was 
taken prisoner, and shut up in a Russian dungeon, while 

"Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell, 
And Freedom shrieked, as Kosciusko fell." 

After suffering long the indescribable horrors of a Russian prison, he was at 
length released, on the accession of Paul, loaded with honors, and offered a commis- 
sion in the Russian army ; which honor he gracefully but firmly declined, although 
the emperor earnestly entreated him to accept, and offered him his own sword. 
"What need have I of a sword," he bitterly and mournfully replied, "since I have 
no longer a country to defend ? " 

In 1797, Kosciusko visited the United States, when high honors were conferred 
on him, and a large grant of land made by Congress, in consideration of his emi- 
nent services. He remained in America many years, but, towards the close of his 
life, he went to Switzerland, and died there, October 16, 1817, in the seventy-second 
year of his age. 




DAVID RITTENPIOUSE 



"^HEN a great captain dies, whether he fall on the ensanguined field of glory, 
or die amidst the scenes of retirement and of home, the pageant, the pomp, 
and heraldry of war blaze his death and his deeds to the world; but when the 
philosopher passes away, whose life of glorious deeds has been bloodless, and 
almost unknown to the busy world, the tears of good men keep his memory green, 
and humanity mourns that earth has been bereft of one of its benefactors. So wept 
humanity when Rittenhouse expired. 

David Rittenhouse was born of humble but honest parents, at Germantown, 
Pennsylvania, on the 8th of April, 1732. His early life was devoted to the common 
labors of the farm; but even his childhood gave evidence of a teeming genius be- 
neath the ploughboy's rough exterior. Figures, diagrams, and pictures covered the 
implements of his labor, the walls of his room, the fences, and even the stones of 
the field. Being a delicate child, the arduous duties of husbandry were found to be 
too much for his strength, and he was "put out" to learn the trade of clock and 
mathematical instrument making. Here he soon became the master and teacher, 
and made great improvements in every piece of work he undertook. He also dis- 
covered fluxions, and for years supposed himself the author of this remarkable 



70 DAVID RITTEN HOUSE. 

invention, not knowing that Newton and Leibnitz had been quarrelling for that honor 
for many years. While in this obscure condition, he jslanned and put into operation 
an orrery, which represented the situation and relation of all the bodies of the solar 
system, present, past, and to come, forever. This masterpiece of genius and mechan- 
ism was purchased by the government of the college of New Jersey. Another, after 
the same model, was ordered for the use of the college of Philadelphia. 

In 1770, he removed to Philadelphia, where his reputation soon became world- 
wide, and his clocks and mathematical instruments won the highest encomiums. 
Previous to this, he had made a communication to the Philosophical Society in 
Philadelphia, in which he calculated, with great exactness, the transit of Venus, 
which was to take place on the 3d of June, 1769, and he was one of the number 
appointed to observe it. The day was cloudless, and every thing conspired to render 
the observation perfect. Twice only, before, had mortal eye looked on such an 
august ceremonial, and on its revelations hung many of the predictions of astron- 
omers and philosophers. No wonder that the bosom of our philosopher heaved with 
many and high emotions; no wonder he hung with fear and trembling on the slow, 
leaden-winged seconds which immediately preceded the contact and embrace of 
those long-separated wanderers of the sky. Slowly they approach ; at length they 
touch; the exactness of his predictions is verified : the joy, the wonder, the glad sur- 
prise is too much for his delicate frame, and the transported Rittenhouse swoons! 
On the 9th of November following, he observed the transit of Mercury. His ac- 
count of both these transits is recorded in the annals of the American Philo- 
sophical Society, of which, in 1791, he was chosen president, on the demise of Dr. 
Franklin, and on which occasion he made a donation to the society of three hundred 
pounds. 

In 1775, he was appointed one of the commissioners for the settlement of a terri- 
torial dispute between Pennsylvania and Virginia ; in 1784-5, for establishing the 
western and northern boundaries of Pennsylvania ; and, in 1787, for fixing the 
boundary line between Massachusetts and New York. In the discharge of these 
onerous and arduous duties, he secured the approbation of those who employed him, 
and endeared himself to all those who were associated with him in the various com- 
missions. He held the office of Treasurer to the State of Pennsylvania from 1777 
to 1789, and, in 1792, was appointed Director of the Mint, which office he resigned, 
in 1795, on account of ill health. His health, which had never been robust, had been 
gradually failing him for years. He foresaw, without alarm, the hastening of his 
chariot wheels to their goal; for his unclouded faith — practical as it was beautiful 
— in the goodness of God and the truth of the Christian revelation enabled him to 
look through the mists of time into the cxhaustless regions of eternity, where he 
should renew his investigations of the Divine Mind under circumstances more pro- 
pitious to his efforts and his unutterable desires. And when, on a lovely day in 
June, the messenger of release came to open the portal of heaven to his soul, with 
an angelic smile he bade his weeping friends farewell, and, with childlike confidence 
commending his spirit to his heavenly guide, without a doubt or fear, set out on 
"the uncertain, everlasting journey," 



/ 




MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 



IN our estimate of the moral forces which cooperated in the formation of the 
American government, and to which we owe, under Providence, all our political 
and social greatness, we are not sufficiently conscious of the influence of the gen- 
tler sex. In the moulding of the characters of those great and good men who 
wrought out our independence ; in the inspirations of an unselfish and all-sacrificing 
patriotism which never since have been equalled, and before only among the Isaiahs 
and Jeremiahs of old time ; in the stern and unbending integrity which no hardship 
or penury could shake, and no temptations bribe ; — in all this we can scarcely esti- 
mate too highly the influence of woman. Nor is the portion of toil and suflering 
borne by the Women of our Revolution, in the actual struggle for national freedom, 
jisignificant, or undeserving our meed of gratitude and praise. We are proud to 
ecord our testimonial of their worth, and sincerely regret that the record of so many 
has passed away forever. 

Mrs. Adams, the wife of John Adams, second President of the United States, was 
the daughter of Rev. William Smith, of Weymouth, and, both in the maternal and 
paternal line, of regular puritanic descent. Her scholastic education was deficient ; 
she " never having attended any school in her life," according to her own testimony. 



C-i MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 

It was under the wise and faithful instructions of her maternal grandfather, Colonel 
John Quincy, and his accomplished and excellent wife, that her mind seems to have 
expanded into unwonted maturity. In later life, she speaks of her residence in this 
family with enthusiastic thanks. " I have not forgotten," she writes to her daughter, 
in 1795, "the excellent lessons which I received from my grandmother;" and again, 
in 1808, " I cherish her memory with holy veneration, whose maxims 1 have treas- 
ured up, whose virtues live in my remembrance ; happy if I could say, they have 
been transplanted into my life." 

Near the completion of her twentieth year, on the Soth of October, 1764, she was 
married to John Adams, then a lawyer in "the small town of Braintree, now Quincy. 
For the space of ten years, her life passed in quiet happiness and domestic tranquil- 
lity. When the needs of the country demanded the services of her husband, who 
had already become prominent as a defender of his country, the scene changed. 
Severe were the labors of that trying hour, and all true men and women were called 
upon to bear their portion of them. Mrs. Adams was of a temper not to shrink 
from her allotted share. With a cheerful zeal, and a calm serenity, she discharged 
her household duties, and the business which her husband was obliged to abandon 
to her care. In the midst of dreadful alarms of battles, and the most anxious 
solicitude for her husband's safety, with pestilence ravaging lier household, — herself 
also a victim, — she writes, " I am distressed, but not dismayed. I have been able 
to maintain a calmness and presence of mind, and I hope I shall, let the cxigi>ncy 
of the times be what it will." Her letters, during this period, present a most vivid 
picture of those days of peril and glory, as well as of the domestic scenes of her 
own and her neighbors' households. 

In 1778, Mr. Adams was sent abroad, whither, in 1784, he was followed by his 
consort. In her new relations abroad, she exhibited the same nobility of nature as 
she had done in her humbler condition, and won for herself the spontaneous homage 
of all great minds. Her letters, during her absence, are full of interesting facts and 
sharp analyses of men and society. She returned home on the adoption of the Con- 
stitution ; and, on the retirement of Washington, Mr. Adams succeeded to the pres- 
idency by a bare majority, and in the midst of the most bitter and heated political 
controversy this country has ever known. The position of Mrs. Adams was a trying 
one, and she demeaned herself with a dignity and firmness which, if it did not dis- 
arm pr(^judice, awakened the admiration of all. 

The latter portion of the life of Mrs. Adams was spent in the peaceful enjoyment 
of an aflluent and happy home, amidst the early and cherished scenes and haunts 
of childhood. She died at Quincy, beloved and respected by all who knew her, on 
the 28th of October, 1818, at the age of seventy-four. 




MAJOR GENERAL ISRAEL PUTNAM. 



VMONG the brave men who fought the early battles of our country, none 
were braver than Putnam. He was of a kind and peaceful nature, never 
creating or causing a broil; but when roused by insult or injustice, his lion heart 
leaped to his hand, and his blows on the heads of wrong-doers fell " fast and 
furious." When a mere boy, being insulted by another and much larger and older 
boy, on account of his rustic appearance, he challenged and whipped the offender, 
greatly to the delight of a crowd of lookers-on. And what schoolboy has not read 
the thrilling story of "Old Put" and the wolf? 

He served in the old French and Indian war, in which his whole career teemed 
with acts of romantic chivalry. We cannot relate all his hardships, hair-breadth 
escapes, and wonderful feats. The following must sulTice : — 

In 1757, while Putnam bore the rank of major, he was ordered, in company 
with the intrepid Major Rogers, with a detachment of several hundred men, to 
watch the movements of the enemy, who were encamped near Ticondcroga. Being 
discovered, he was compelled, with his command, to retreat through the forest on 
Fort Edward. He had not gone far when he fell upon an ambush of about five 
hundred French and Indians. Taken by surprise, Putnam halted his troops, and 



74 MAJOR GENERAL ISRAEL PUTNAM. 

returned the fire of his enemy. He had just crossed a creek, and knew that he 
could not retreat with safety. Encouraging his men, they held their ground, and 
the battle became general, and waxed hot. In the early part of the fray, Putnam 
had become separated from the body, and found himself compelled to defend him- 
self against several savages at once. Thrice had he slain his antagonist, and his 
fusee was pressed against the breast of another stalwart savage, who was rushing 
on him, when it missed fire. The Indian, with an exulting yell, leaped on his 
victim, with uplifted tomahawk, when Putnam surrendered at discretion. His 
master immediately bound him to a tree, and joined in the melee once more. 
While thus bound, a" brutal Frenchman discovered him, and, pressing his musket 
to his side, attempted to discharge it; but it missed fire. After beating him cruelly 
in the face with the but of his musket, he left him. Just at that instant a solitary 
young Indian discovered his defenceless position, and amused himself by hurling 
his tomahawk into the tree close to his head on either side. 

In the course of the fight, the combatants so changed their ground that Major 
Putnam was exactly between them for some time, the balls from both sides striking 
the tree, and riddling his clothes. At the close of the fight, he was unbound by 
his master and led into captivity. Here his sufferings commenced. He was 
obliged to travel barefoot, and loaded much beyond his strength. Each night 
he was bound and guarded beyond the possibility of escape. He was treated with 
great cruelty, and nearly starved, the savages taking special delight in torturing him 
in every conceivable way. At length a council of war was held, and it was deter- 
mined to burn him alive. He was bound to a sapling, and dry fagots and pitch- 
wood were piled high around him, and set on fire. He was so bound that he could 
move round the tree ; the savages, with hellish delight, exulting in his vain endeavors 
to escape the flames, which were beginning to scorch his flesh. Poor Putnam now 
gave up all hope, and made up his mind to die like a hero, when a sudden shower 
of rain dampened the flames. Just at this moment, his master, who had been sep- 
arated from his party for a few days, made his appearance, and, claiming his prize, 
scattered the burning brands, and unbound his prisoner, thus saving him from the 
most excruciating death. 

His master, who, Indian as he was, had some sparks of humanity in his savage 
breast, dressed his wounds, fed him, put some moccasons on his feet, and a 
blanket over his shoulders, and protected him from the insults and cruelties of his 
enemies during the remainder of the march. At night, he was stretched upon his 
back, on the ground, his hands and feet bound to four saplings as far asunder as 
his limbs could be stretched. Across him long poles were laid, on each end of which 
several Indians stretched themselves before they went to sleep. In this painful sit- 
uation he did not lose his fortitude, and often, as he afterwards said, amused him- 
self with the ludicrousness of his situation, and could not forbear smiling as he 
imagined himself and his tawny masters a rich subject for the pencil of a Hogarth. 

But he survived all his trials and exposures, and was at length exchanged, with 
others, and lived to fight other battles for his country, and, at the close of the war, to 
retire to his farm, and live to a good old age, to die in peace and Christian hope. 

General Putnam was born in Salem, Massachusetts, January 7, 1718, and died at 
Brooklyn, Connecticut, May 29, 1790, aged seventy-two years. 




MAJOR GENERAL JAMES WOLEE 



rr^HIS intrepid and gallant young officer, over whose sad fate so many eyes have 
JL moistened, held, at the time of his death, the rank of major general in the British 
army. He was born in Westerham, Kent county, England, January 2, 1727. He 
early turned his thoughts to the army, and, before he was twenty, was already accus- 
tomed to the smell of the " villanous saltpetre." He held a commission in the expe- 
dition against Louisburg, and was in nearly every battle fought in that Germanic 
war. At the peace of Aix la Chapelle, he returned to England, and, receiving a 
major general's commission, immediately joined an expedition against Canada, 
then held by the French. Late in June, 1759, he landed at Orleans, an island in 
the immediate neighborhood of Quebec. 

The French forces were concentrated at this point, and were under the command 
of General Montcalm, a brave and accomplished officer, and of a high lineage in 
France. He was strongly posted, and considered his position wholly impreg- 
nable. Wolfe commenced offensive operations by attacking the French intrench- 
ments on the left bank of the St. Charles. He was repulsed with loss. Perceiving 
that nothing could be effected unless the heights, on which the town was built, could 
be attained, he resolved to make the perilous attempt. With herculean labor and 

6 



76 MAJOR GENERAL JAMES WOLFE. 

consummate skill this was achieved, and nothing was left for Montcalm but to fly 
or fii^^ht. He resolved to give battle to the English ; a battle upon which was to 
hang^lhe fate of Quebec, and the question whether French or English rule should 
sway the future destinies of the Canadas. He immediately marched to the conflict, 
crossing the St. Charles, and showing his bristling front on the ever-memorable 
"Plains of Abraham." The charge was im))etuous, and well maintained; but the 
British sustained the shock with undaunted firmness. The fight was sanguinary 
and brief. Early in the action, General Wolfe received a bullet in his wrist. Hastily 
wrapping a handkerchief around it, he continued to lead the fray and animate his 
troops. Quickly after he received another shot in the groin. This he concealed 
from his soldiers, and continued to command as before. But he was a marked target 
for a few Canadians who had concealed themselves on the left; and immediately 
after, whilst charging the French at the head of his grenadiers, he received a third 
bullet in the breast, and fell on the field of combat mortally wounded. At that mo- 
ment he forgot himself, and thought only of the issue of the battle. " Support i?ie," 
he said to an oflicer near at hand ; " l(>t not my brave soldiers see me drop. The 
day is ours, — keep it." He was taken to the rear, where he anxiously inquired, 
"How goes the battle?" "They run, they run!" exclaimed the officer. "Who 
runs?" he inquired, with great enthusiasm. "The enemy, sir," was the gratifying 
reply ; " they give way every where." " Now, God be praised," was his exultant 
response, " I die happy ! " He never spoke again, and almost immediately expired 
in the arms of his heart>broken officers, who loved him as a man, and gloried in him 
as a leader. 

The brave and gallant Montcalm fell at the same time, and the spirits of the two 
chivalrous warriors went up together, in the same chariot of fire, to those " Plains of 
Abraham " where battles never are waged. The remains of the victorious Wolfe 
were carried to England, and deposited in Westminster Abbey, where a monunient 
was erected to his memory : those of the vanquished Montcalm were thrown into 
a pit, on the battle field, made by the explosion of a shell, and lie there until this 
day. What a comment on war ! — civilized. Christian war ! 

General Wolfe was the true type of a gentleman-soldier. Urbane and gracious, 
full of benevolence, seeking out the objects of charity in his camp, he conciliated 
his men, while by his strict discipline he prevented many of the evils incident to 
large military bodies. His clear, quick apprehension, his sound judgment and 
daring courage, eminently fitted him to be a leader. He won the confidence of his 
troops at once, and they felt almost certain that to follow his lead was to insure a 
victory. His many manly virtues and his tragical fate have been the theme of song 
and prose, and will continue to be while the glory of battle is said or sung. 




MAJOR GENERAL RICHARD MONTGOMERY, 



AyrAJOR GENERAL RICHARD MONTGOMERY was born in the north 
AJA. of Ireland, in 1737. Possessed of a brilliant genius, and a highly-cultivated 
mind, he entered the English army, at the early age of twenty, with considerable 
eclat. He fought side by side with Wolfe, at the taking of Quebec — a place so 
singularly destined to witness his first and his last battles. On his return to Eng- 
land, he decided to make America his home ; and, marrying a daughter of Robert 
R. Jjivingston, he settled down upon the North River as an American citizen. 

On the breaking out of the Revolution, he took sides with his adopted country, 
and became a devoted j)atriot. With a brigadier's commission, he joined the expe- 
dition against Quebec, in the winter of 1775, under General Schuyler, where he soon 
assumed the command, in consequence of the illness of his superior, and was hon- 
ored with the commission of major general. In this arduous campaign, his brilliant 
military talents fully developed themselves. 

At the head of a well-disciplined and well-appointed army, brilliant deeds are 
expected of its commander ; but when these bright feats of arms are exhibited by 
such an army as the gallant Montgomery commanded, we cannot withhold our 
tribute of admiration for the noble spirits who direct its movements. True, those 



T8 MAJOR GENERAL RICHARD MONTGOMERY. 

soldiers were brave men, fighting for liberty and their homes, but they were destitute 
of almost all else that constitutes the magazines of war. Half clad, half fed, shoe- 
less, and nearly destitute of artillery, at midwinter, in the severest climate in the 
world, overwhelmed with nearly daily avalanches of snow from the exhaustless 
clouds, it required the genius, the prompt and noble daring of Montgomery to lead 
such a forlorn hope to victory. Thrice — at St. John's, Chambly, and Montreal — 
had his undisciplined and mutinous troops achieved a triumph through the genius 
of their leader; and it only wanted that Quebec should be added, to make the list 
of his conquests complete. Every thing combined to oppose his success. Whole 
companies deserted, and the remainder of the invading army became so mutinous 
and turbulent, that even Montgomery, beloved and feared as he was, nearly lost all 
control of them. The snow, which had been falling incessantly for several days, 
was piled into large drifts by furious gales, and the cold was most intense. Yet 
nothing cooled the ardor of Montgomery. He determined to attack the garrison, 
greatly his superiors in number and force. Covered by a heavy fall of snow, he 
advanced to the assault. A battery of three guns had been placed so as to command 
the narrow pass through which the American army was defiling. Already had the 
enemy discovered, dimly, through the veil of snow, the movements of the intrepid 
Montgomery, while his clear voice was heard, like the tones of a trumpet, encour- 
aging his troops — " Men of New York! you will not fear to follow where your gen- 
eral lealls. March on ! " Shouts answered this bold appeal, and as he leaped 
forward over piles of broken ice and rock, and drifted snow, his soldiers trod close 
upon his heels. At that instant, when within fifty paces of the battery, it opened 
directly in their faces, and poured such a torrent of grape, that the brave-hearted 
Montgomery, together with both his aids, and many of his men, was instantly an- 
nihilated. Terrified at the awful havoc, and the loss of their beloved general, the 
rest incontinently fled. The death of Montgomery was the token of defeat, and no 
other name was sufficient to rouse the broken and discomfited ranks of the American 
army, and shortly after they surrendered themselves prisoners of war. 

The death of this brave officer threw a gloom over the whole country. Congress 
voted its honors, and a monument to his memory. This vote was subsequently car- 
ried into execution, and a beautifully chaste monument of white marble erected in 
front of St. Paul's Church, in the city of New York, with the following inscription : — 

This 

monument is erected by order of Congress, 

25th of January, 1776, 

to transmit to posterity a grateful remembrance of the patriotic conduct, 

enterprise, and perseverance of 

Major General Richard Montgomery, 

who, after a series of successes amidst the most discouraging 

difficulties, Fell in the attack on 

Quebec, 31st December, 1775, aged 37 years. 




MAJOR GENERAL BENJAMIN LINCOLN 



BENJAMIN LINCOLN— an heroic officer of the Revolution, a skilful diploma- 
tist, and a ready debater in the councils of his country — was born in Hingham, 
near Boston, on the 23d of January, 1733. 

When the revolutionary war commenced, Lincoln was a lieutenant colonel under 
commission from Governor Hutchinson. He unhesitatingly threw himself into the 
cause of the colonists, and, in 1775, was elected member of the Provincial Congress, 
and by that body appointed one of its secretaries, and a member of the committee 
of correspondence. In 1776, he received the appointment of brigadier, and soon 
after that of major general, and the following year entered the continental army, in 
the same grade, by appointment of Congress, and, in the autumn of the same year, 
joined the northern army, under Schuyler. He rendered valuable service in that 
trying campaign, and signalized himself in both of the battles on the plains of Sar- 
atoga, which proved so disastrous to Burgoyne. He was so severely wounded in 
the fight of the 7th of October, that he was obliged to leave the army and return 
home. He rejoined the army, " to the great joy of Washington, who duly appre- 
ciated his valuable services," in the following August, He was immediately sent to 
the south, to assume command of the army in that quarter ; which, on his arrival at 



PO MAJOR GENERAL BENJAMIN LINCOLN. 

Charleston, in December, 1778, he found in the most miserably destitute and disor- 
derly condition. But such were the indefatigable industry and diplomatic energy of 
the commander, that, in June following, he found himself able to take the field and 
commence offensive operations, though with small success. 

On the 19th of June, General Lincoln attacked a garrison of the enemy strongly 
posted at Stono Ferry, which was followed by the chivalrous attack on Savannah 
in conjunction wath the impetuous D'Estaing. In both these actions, the Americans 
were compelled to retire with a heavy loss. At Charleston, which place he under- 
took to defend against the siege and blockade of Sir Henry Clinton's army of nine 
thousand men, he was equally unsuccessful, and, after a brave resistance of more 
than two months, was compelled to capitulate and render up the city and the army 
under his command. 

Such w^as the popularity of General Lincoln with the army, and the whole coun- 
try, that their confidence was not abated in any degree ; for w^hen, on being ex- 
changed, in 1781, he rejoined the army, he was sent to cooperate once more with the 
southern army, and had the high satisfaction of aiding in the reduction of Yorktown, 
and of conducting the defeated army to the field where they were to lay down their 
arms at the feet of the illustrious Washington. 

Lnmediately on the close of the war. General Lincoln was appointed Secretaiy 
of War, retaining his rank in the army. He resigned the office in 1783, and received 
the thanks of Congress for his patriotic military and civil services. He now retired 
to his farm, where he passed his time in agricultural and literary pursuits until 
1786-7, when he once more took the field to quell the famous Shays's insurrection. 
Having triumphantly accomplished this, he once more sought the seclusion of his 
home, and, although called repeatedly to the discharge of various public duties, he 
passed the remainder of his life in comparative quiet and happiness. 

General Lincoln held the post of lieutenant governor, was a member of the con- 
vention called to ratify the new constitution, and for many years was collector of 
the port of Boston, besides filling many minor offices. He received from Har- 
vard University the degree of Master of Arts, was a member of the American Acad- 
emy of Arts and Sciences, as well as of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 
and was president of the Society of Cincinnati from its organization to the day of 
his death. In all these, as well as his private relations, he was trusted, respected, 
beloved. He closed his honorable and useful life in the seventy-eighth year of his 
age, at Hingham, on the 9th of May, 1810. 




FISHER AMES. 



FISHER AMES, so widely known as an eloquent orator and distinguished 
statesman, was born in Dedham, MassachiTsetts, on the 9th of April, 1758. 
He sprung from one of the oldest and most respectable families in the ancient com- 
monwealth. His father was a physician of some celebrity in Dedham. In 1774 
he was graduated at Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Having com- 
pleted his academic course with much credit to himself, he determined on the study 
of law, and opened an office in his native village in the autumn of 1781. 

Although young Ames took a deep interest in the stirring scenes of the Revolu- 
tion, and sympathized, with his whole heart, with the patriots, he was too young to 
take any active part in them. When he came to man's estate, he retained his in- 
terest in the growth and progress of the young states, and was early called by his 
fellow-citizens to take part in the councils of his native town and state, as well as 
of those of the nation. Besides the publication of many striking articles in the 
journals of the day, in which the affairs of the nation were so skilfully discussed as 
to give evidence of a very thorough knowledge of the science of government and 
politic?, an opportunity was afforded in the convention called in his native stale . 
" for the consideration and ratification of the Federal Constitution," and of v/hich !k- 



82 



FISHER AMES. 



was chosen a member, for a more striking display of his oratorical powers, and the 
brilliancy of his genius. The speeches he delivered in this convention took his 
friends and the world by surprise, and at once established his reputation as one of 
the ablest and most eloquent debaters of that day. 

When at length, in 1789, the general government of the United States went into 
operation under the Federal Constitution, ]\Ir. Ames was elected a member of Con- 
gress from his native district, retaining his seat through the whole of Washington's 
administration, of wdiich he w^as an able and efficient supporter. During the whole 
time Mr. Ames was in Congress, he was one of the most efficient debaters of the 
important questions which came before that body. With a comprehensive insight 
of the subject in hand, greatly superior to many older and more experienced legis- 
lators, his eloquent reasoning made the rough places smooth, and carried conviction 
to the heart and judgment of those who listened to him. When, towards the close 
of the last session of which he was a member, the question relative to the appropri- 
ations necessary to carry into effect the British treaty was the subject of debate 
before the house, IVIr. Ames, although in a very feeble state of health, made such an 
overwhelming argument that the opposition begged that the vote might not then be 
taken, as the effect of his speech was such as to unfit the members to vote dispas- 
sionately. What a tribute to his eloquence and reasoning powers ! 

This was the last great effort of his life ; and, feeling that it would be, he made 
such touching allusion " to his own slender and almost broken thread of life," that 
his audience was visibly affected ; and he was so much exhausted with the effort 
that his friends feared that it might greatly accelerate his disease. 

At the close of the session, Mr. Ames travelled at the South, and visited several 
of the watering-places in Virginia, by which his health was considerably benefited. 
About this time, the College of New Jersey conferred on him the title of Doctor of 
Laws. Declining to be a candidate for reelection, he retired to his paternal acres, 
where, with the exception of consenting to serve a few years as a member of the 
council, he remained a private citizen to the close of his life. 

A few years before his decease, he was chosen President of Harvard University, 
but declined the honor on account of his health. Indeed, his disease had so preyed 
on his constitution that he found himself compelled to give up entirely the duties 
of his profession, solacing himself with the oversight of his farm, and the pleasures 
of society and of home. Here, beloved and respected by all, sustained and cheered 
by an unclouded Christian faith, he waited for the approach of death, and went, at 
last, 

" Like one who ^vraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." 




MAJOR GENERAL ANTHONY WAYNE 



ANTHONY WAYNE — " Mad Anthony," as he was familiarly called in the 
- army, on account of his reckless, headlong courage — whose grandfather com- 
manded a company of dragoons at the battle of Boyne, and whose father exhibited 
great sagacity and bravery in many engagements with the savages which prowled 
about his cradle-home, was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, on the first day of 
the year 1745. He never had much taste for severe study, although he took kindly 
to mathematics, and, at the age of eighteen, he left the academy at Philadelphia, 
and entered upon the business of surveying. Entering warmly into the controversy 
of the colonies with the mother country, he became an ardent patriot, and soon had 
the first wish of his heart gratified by a military commission. In 1775, he raised a 
regiment of volunteers, and was chosen its colonel. The next year, he received the 
appointment of colonel from the Continental Congress, and was placed at the head 
of one of the Pennsylvania regiments, with which he joined the northern army, 
fought, and was severely wounded, at the battle of the " Three Rivers," received a 
brigadier's commission in 1777, was appointed to the command of Ticonderoga, 
and, in the spring following, joined "Washington in New Jersey. 

On the 11th and 16th of September, on the field of Brandywine, battle was had 



84: MAJOR, GENERAL ANTHONY WAYNE. 

for a noble prize between the American and English armies. That prize was the 
city of Philadelphia. Wayne led the advance on the occasion, and suffered the 
chagrin of seeing the city fall into the hands of the enemy. At Germantown, also, 
he fought with bravery and prudence, but was compelled to retreat before a superior 
force. While our army lay in winter quarters at Valley Forge, Wayne was sent 
into New Jersey to forage, which duty he performed to the delight of his com- 
mander, and the surprise of the enemy, from under whose very nose he succeeded 
in carrying oft" large supplies of cattle and forage. It was of this expedition, and 
its leader, that the witty Andre employed the satire of his pen in a song set to the 
music of " Yankee Doodle." The last stanzas of this philippic ran thus : — 

" But now, I end my lyric strain — 
I tremble as I show it, 
Lest this same warrior-drover, Wayne, 
Should ever catch the poet." 

Singularly enough, when Andre was taken, he was delivered into the hands of this 
same " warrior-drover." 

We next find Wayne at Stony Point, which, by a well-devised and promptly- 
executed stratagem, he assaulted and carried, killing sixty-three, and taking five 
hundred and forty-three, of the enemy. In the assault, he received a shot in the 
knee, and fell. Rising instantly on one knee, he exclaimed, " Forward, my brave 
fellows, forward!" For this valuable service. Congress voted him thanks. 

In January, 1781, the Pennsylvania army revolted, and, parading without officers, 
seized the cannon, ammunition, and provisions, and determined to march to Congi'css, 
in a body, to present their grievances. Wayne presented himself, and tried all in 
his power to quell the revolt by words of kindness and threatening. Finding that 
he produced no effect on them, he drew his pistols, and swore he would shoot the 
first man who moved. The soldiers presented their muskets, and answered him 
thus : " We respect and love you ; you have often led us to the battle field ; but you 
are our leader no longer. Dare but to discharge your pistols, and you are instantly 
a dead man. We are still attached to the cause, and are ready to meet the enemy 
in the breach ; but we ivill have redress^ For their insubordination they were dis- 
missed, with disgrace, from the service, and the ringleaders punished. 

Wayne then went to Virginia, where he served with Washington and La Fayette, 
arid witnessed the happy conclusion of the war at the surrender of Yorktown. After 
some vmimportant services rendered at the south, he retired to private life. 

The Indians on our north-western frontier, aided by the British and tories, had 
grown insolent, and committed the most wanton ravages and cruelties on that bor- 
der. Harmar, St. Clair, and other brave officers had yielded to their savage prowess. 
In 1792, Wayne was appointed to the command of the north-western army. After 
much mancEUvring, he succeeded in bringing the enemy to battle, and routed them with 
immense slaughter, the Indian force being twice that of his own. This brought the 
savages to thek senses, and, after holding out for a few months, they at length, on 
the 3d of August, 1795, signed a treaty of peace. 

In the winter of 1796, in a miserable hut at Presque Isle, this veteran warrior, in 
the service of his country, breathed his last in the arms of his officers, and was 
buried on the shores of Lake Erie. 




BENJAMIN WEST, 



rflHIS celebrated painter was the tenth child of John West and Sarah Pearson, 
JL and was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, October 10, 1738. His parents 
were Quakers. Just before Benjamin was born, Mrs. West was greatly affected by 
the preaching of a celebrated Quaker preacher of that age, and, relating her expe- 
rience to him, he predicted that the child yet to be born would become eminent, and 
solemnly charged the father to be very careful of its education. His genius for the 
art in which he became so distinguished manifested itself at the early age of six, 
when he drew the likeness of a little niece of his, who had been left to his charge 
in a cradle, which was instantly recognized by his delighted mother ; who, remem- 
bering the prediction of the preacher, already seemed to see its fulfilment. She 
eagerly and fondly kissed her little boy ; and he, encouraged by such rewards, made 
rapid progress. In speaking of this circumstance, Mr. West used to say, " That kiss 
of my mother's made me a painter." 

Soon after this event he was put to school in the neighborhood, and furnished 
with pens and paper to amuse himself with drawing, none of his friends dreaming 
of any other materials being necessary for that purpose. Here he became acquainted 
with some Indians, who, being struck with the accuracy of his drawings of birds and 



SS BENJAMIN WEST. 

animals, furnished him with the pigments with which they bedaubed their faces, and 
taught him hoAV to use them. To this his mother added indigo, and his studio was 
furnished. 

Happening to hear of camel's hair pencils, and understanding that there were no 
camels in the land, he substituted the tip of his favorite pussy's tail, and, when that 
was worn out, the hair upon her back ; until a fortunate circumstance put him in 
possession of what he so much coveted — a regular palette, pencils, and a box of 
colors. 

We dwell on these early incidents, because they are not only interesting in them- 
selves, as fiu-nishing the prophecy of the painter's future triumph, but as a lesson to 
parents carefully and assiduously to nourish the first germs of genius in their off- 
spring. Many a great man has been crushed in embryo by the dulness or petulance 
of his parents, and fallen into hopeless mediocrity. 

The early manifestation of genius in young West gained him many friends, and 
his way was thus opened to the great world, in which he ^vas destined to make such 
a sensation. His progress was rapid, and all the details of it interesting. We 
regret that our restricted limits will not allow us to indulge in the strong desire we 
have to lay them before our readers. 

Young West removed to Philadelphia at the tender age of eight, and, for a few 
years, made great proficiency under the tutelage of Provost Smith. His first his- 
torical piece, the " Death of Socrates," was produced about this time. His father was 
desirous of placing him in business, while many of his friends thought that he ought 
to be permitted to cultivate his taste and talent for painting. These judicious friends 
at length prevailed, and the world has occasion to rejoice in the result. 

In 1759, Mr. West, then just twenty-one, embarked for Italy ; amving at Leghorn 
and thence journeying to Rome. This journey was enjoyed by our artist with the 
greatest zest ; and the wonderful works of art, and the rich exhibitions of nature, 
filled his soul with tumultuous wonder and delight. He soon made himself re- 
spected among the best artists of Rome, and established his reputation as a painter 
of great excellence. By the advice of Mengs, who then stood at the head of the 
painters in Rome, he went first to Florence, thence to Bologna, and afterwards to 
Venice, meeting with favor every where. After a brief sojourn in Rome, he went to 
England. He had no intention of remaining here, but circumstances determined 
him to change his plan, and he set up his easel in London. Here he was intro- 
duced to the youthful monarch, who immediately took him under his patronage. 
While painting his " Departure of Regulus," the plan of the " Royal Academy of 
Fine Arts " was adopted. Reynolds was chosen its first president, and on his death, 
in 1791, West succeeded to the chair, and presided over the institution until his 
death, in 1820, with the exception of a brief interim, in which, having mixed him- 
self up rather freely with French politics, he lost favor at court, and thovight best to 
resign his office. 

Mr. West was a man of great simplicity of manners, credulous and confiding, dil- 
igent and temperate in his habits, and of a decidedly religious turn of mind ; and, at 
the age of eighty-one, he closed his eyes on mortality, with his accustomed cheerful- 
ness, and with all his mental faculties uneclipsed. 




MAJOU JOHN ANDHE. 



rr^HIS accomplished and unfortunate young British officer was born in Eng- 
JL land, in 1751. He entered the army at the age of seventeen, and became one 
of Sir Henry Clinton's aids in 1776, with the title of major. When the traitor 
Arnold proposed to deliver up West Point and the American army to the British, 
Andre was appointed to confer with Arnold, and settle the preliminaries of that 
damnable treachery. Under the name of Anderson, he passed into the American 
lines, and consummated the treasonable propositions of Arnold. Being disappointed 
of returning to New York by water, he obtained, through Arnold's influence, a pass 
from the general officer, and started on his return. He had passed, in perfect se- 
curity, all the posts and guards on the road, and was proceeding to New York in 
triumph, when, on the 23d of September, one of three American militiamen, who 
acted as a scouting party, sprung suddenly from his covert and seized his bridle, or- 
dering him to halt. This was so unlooked for, that Andre lost his self-possession, 
and inquired hastily of the soldier, " Where do you belong ? " *' Below^," was the 
equivocal reply. " So do I," returned Andre. " I am a British officer, and I trust 
you wiU allow me to proceed without detention, as I am on important business." A 
peculiar smile on the face of the militiaman revealed to him his mistake, and the 



90 MAJOR JOHN ANDRE. 

other two men coming up at that moment, he discovered, too late, the fatal trap he 
had sprung upon himself. He then sought to bribe the American soldiers, offering 
his purse and watch, and promising them the most ample reward from his govern- 
ment, if they would allow him to proceed. But they were not of the Arnold stamp, 
and they sternly rejected all his bribes. On searching him, they found concealed in 
one of his boots, in Arnold's own handwriting, papers containing exact returns of 
the state of the forces, stores, ordnance, and defences of West Point, with those of 
all its dependencies, with various other kinds of information necessary to the success 
of the British, and all addressed to Sir Henry Clinton, commander-in-chief of the 
British forces in New York. 

The three brave men whose patriotism was strong enough to resist such brilliant 
bribes, and the eloquent appeals of the accomplished Andre, were John Paulding, 
David Williams, and Isaac Van Wert. They deserve, and will ever receive, the 
gratitude of their country. 

The board of officers composing the court-martial which was to try Andre, and at 
whose head was General Greene, found him guilty of being a spy, and sentenced 
him to be hanged. After he found himself fairly a prisoner, he threw off all disguises, 
and acknowledged every thing; indeed, he was convicted on his own confession. 
Every effort was made to procure a remission of the dreadful verdict, for he was a 
dear friend of Sir Henry Clinton's, and a favorite with all the officers ; but it was 
thought too flagrant a case to go unpunished, and the commander of the American 
army, though with the deepest commiseration, ordered the sentence of the court to 
be carried into immediate execution. 

Accordingly, on the 2d of October, 1780, he was led forth to execution. When 
he saw the fatal gibbet, he manifested some emotion, and exclaimed, " Must I die 
in this manner ? " and in a moment added, " But it will be only a momentary 
pang ; " and, instantly resuming his wonted serenity, he met his fate with a dig- 
nity and composure which excited the admiration, and deeply moved the pity, of 
all who witnessed the sad termination of a life so full of promise. 

Thus perished, in the flower of his youth, one of the most gallant and accom- 
plished officers in the British army, and of whom an enemy, the gifted Hamilton, 
thus speaks : — 

" There was something singularly interesting in the character and fortunes of 
Major Andre. To an excellent understanding, well improved by education and 
travel, he united a peculiar elegance of mind and manners, and the advantage of a 
most pleasing person. He had a pretty taste for the fine arts, and had made con- 
siderable proficiency in painting, poetry, and inusic. His knowledge appeared with- 
out ostentation, and embellished by a diffidence that rarely accompanies so many 
talents and accomplishments. His sentiments were elevated, and inspired esteem ; 
they had a softness that conciliated affection. His elocution w^as handsome, his ad- 
dress easy, polite, and insinuating. By his merit he had acquired the unlimited 
confidence of his general, and was making rapid advances in military rank and 
reputation." 




DANIEL BOONE. 



THIS hardy and brave pioneer, and founder of Kentucky, was born in 1748, in 
Bucks county, Pennsylvania, about twenty miles from Philadelphia, While 
yet a mere boy, his father emigrated to North Carolina, and settled on the banks 
of the South Yadkin River. The wild and daring spirit, the love of adventure, and 
fearless intrepidity, which characterized his maturer life, were displayed very early. 
Before he was tvventy, he married the daughter of Mr. Ryan, a neighboring settler, 
by whom he had several children, and who cheerfully shared with him his lonely 
and repeated removals from civilized into savage life. 

On the 1st of May, 1769, Boone, with a few neighbors, started for the western 
wilderness, and, at length, "located" on the banks of the Red River, in Kentucky, 
then an unbroken wilderness, which had never known a white man, nor resounded 
to the stroke of the axe. We cannot foUow our hero through all the vicissitudes of 
his pioneer life ; it was one of great peril and many hardships. Several times 
taken prisoner by the Indians, he had the tact to conciliate them, and contrive hh 

7 



92 DANIEL BOONE. 

escape. Enduring much by reason of hunger and privations, toiling early and late 
to reduce the savage wastes to a condition of cultivation, he acquired such a passion 
for his wild and adventurous life, that when, in 1792, Kentucky was admitted to the 
Union, he struck out still farther into the wilderness, and settled, at length, at 
St. Charles, on the Missouri River, about forty-five miles above St. Louis. On 
being asked why, at his time of life, he relinquished the comforts of a home he had 
redeemed from savage life and rendered comfortable, for the renewed trials of a 
wilderness home, his answer was, " O, I am too crowded ; I must have more elbow 
room." 

During this interval of time. Colonel Boone had made many lesser changes in 
his place of residence, and had often been employed by government on missions 
of hostile and friendly intent among the Indians ; in all of which he exhibited a 
statesmanship and courage which won for him the approval of his employers, and 
the admiration of his savage foes. He resided in this last home about fifteen years, 
when, losing his wife, who had shared with him all his perilous life, he went to 
spend the remnant of his days with his son. Major Nathan Boone, and where he 
died, in 1822, breathing his la.st in perfect resignation, at the gi-eat age of eighty- 
four years. 

It would far exceed our proposed limits to enter into a minute detail of all the 
romantic and adventurous exploits of this remarkable man ; we content ourselves 
with the following : — 

While a resident in his father's house, on the Yadkin River, being about eighteen 
years of age, he, in company with another youth of the neighborhood, got up a '' fire 
hunt," which is conducted as follows : One of the party rides through the forest 
on horseback, with a lighted torch swinging above his head, while the other remains 
in covert. The torch attracts the attention of the deer, and at a signal from the 
concealed person the torch is held stationary, and, while the eager eyes of the won- 
dering animal are fixed on the light, a ball is planted between them, and the " poor 
fool " falls a victim to his curiosity. On this occasion, Boone was in covert, and, 
seeing a pair of reflecting eyes through the dim shade of the trees, levelled his rifle, 
and gave the preconcerted signal. To his astonishment, the animal turned and fled ; 
and, without a thought, the brave hunter sprung from his hiding-place and pursued. 
Over hill and moor, through brake and thicket, the race went forward, our hero 
gaining on the game until, at length, the affrighted and pursued object rushed into 
the house of his newly-settled neighbor Ryan. Flinging himself through the door, 
we may judge of the confusion of Boone when he saw the object of his pursuit faint- 
ing with terror in the old man's arms — for it ivas his beautiful and onlji davs;hler I 
We need not relate how he wooed and won the fair Rebecca, who came so near 
being the victim to his. bullet. 

While residing on the Kentucky River, a party of three Indians waylaid and took 
prisoners three young ladies, one of them Booiu^'s daughter. He was absent from 
the fort at the time, but, returning some hours after, commenced the pursuit alone, 
overtook the party the following day, and, slaying two of the Indians, returned to 
the fort, bringing the fair captives with him. 




BENJAMIN RUSH, M. D. 



"IVT O American physician has acquired a wider and higher reputation for learning, 
X^ skill and genius than Dr. Benjamin Rush ; and certainly he has never had his 
superior in those personal virtues which adorned his character and made him a fa- 
vorite with all classes of society. The system of practice which he adopted and 
advocated has gone much into disuse at the present day, although it still has its ad- 
vocates, and doubtless will continue to have, until some benefoctor to the race shall 
be able to demonstrate its error. This discussion, however, comes not into our voca- 
tion, and we leave to the knights of the lancet to settle this bruited question as best 
they can. 

Dr. Rush was born in Byberry township, Philadelphia county, on the 24th of De- 
cember, 1745. His father dying \vhcn he was six years old, his mother assumed the 
charge of his education ; and so faithfully did she execute the important trust, that 
he was able to enter Princeton College at the age of thirteen ; and such had been 
his progress in his studies, that he obtained his degree before he was fifteen years 
old. After spending five years in the medical offices of the celebrated physicians 
Drs. Redman and Shippen, he went to Edinburgh, where, after two years' study in 
the university in that city, he received the degree of T)ocfor of Medicine. 



94 BENJAMIN RUSH, M. D. 

After taking his degree in Scotland, Dr. Rush went to London and Paris, where 
he spent a few months, and returned to Philadelphia in the autumn of 1769, when 
he was elected professor of chemistry in the College of Philadelphia. In 1791, the 
college being merged in the university, Dr, Rush was appointed professor of the 
institutes and practice of medicine, and of clinical practice. His lectures were pop- 
ular, and very fully attended, and his practice greatly extended itself. He adopted 
the depletory practice, and resorted, on almost all occasions, to the lancet and cal- 
omel. In his treatment of the yellow fever, which, about this time, desolated Phil- 
adelphia, — the only account of which, that has been preserved, being from notes 
taken by Dr. Rush at the time, — he seems to have been eminently successful. He 
remained at his post constantly during the three months of its ravages, and gave 
his services freely to the poor, rejecting enormous offers from the rich, that the chil- 
dren of poverty should not suffer from want of care. Once he came near falling a 
victim to the disease. He took no rest, and visited, on an average, one hundi'ed 
patients daily. He adopted for his own the motto of the great Boerhaave, " The 
poor are my best patients, for God is their paymaster." 

As might have been expected of such a man, Dr. Rush was an ardent patriot, 
and took a decided stand with the friends of his country. By his counsels and his 
pen, he did eminent service to the cause of freedom, and filled several important 
offices. In 1776, he put his name, as a member of the Continental Congress, to 
the immortal Declaration of Independence. In 1777, he was appointed head of the 
medical staff in the Continental army, and was assiduous in his duties, visiting the 
hospitals, assisting the wounded, and exercising a general oversight of the health of 
the army. 

Dr. Rush was a great student and Avriter, and it is through his many printed 
works that his memory is kept fragrant in the hearts of his countrymen. From his 
nineteenth to the sixty-fourth year of his age, he was a public writer. Our limits 
will not allow us to give a list even of his published works. They exhibit exten- 
sive learning, profound medical science, deep piety, a zealous patriotism and un- 
bounded benevolence. His moral qualities were such as naturally spring from an 
elevated and cultivated mind, and a heart deeply penetrated with the love of " what- 
soever things are pure and of good report." 

From the age of twenty-four until his death he was in constant and extensive 
practice. He w^as cut off suddenly, by a prevailing typhus fever, in the midst of 
usefulness, on the 19th of April, 1813, being sixty-eight years of age. " He saveu 
others ; himself he could not save." 

Dr. Rush was man-ied, in 1776, to Miss Julia Stockton, eldest daughter of Richar*. 
Stockton, Esq., of New Jersey, whose name appears with that of his son-in-law ii • 
the original Declaration of Independence. His widow, and a numerous progeny oi 
sons and daughters, survived him. 




MAJOR GENERAL DANIEL MORGAN 



DANIEL MORGAN, the poor wagon-boy, " the hero of Quebec, of Saratoga, 
and the Cowpens, — the bravest of the brave, and the Ney of the West," — 
was born of poor and illiterate parents in New Jersey, in 1736. At the age of sev- 
enteen, he engaged himself as a wagoner to a wealthy planter in Virginia. In the 
unfortunate expedition of Braddock, he belonged to the army, and drove his own 
team. It was in this campaign that, under charge of contumacy to a British officer, 
he actually received five hundred lashes on the bare back. Nothing but an iron 
frame saved him from annihilation. The worst of it was, the officer afterwards 
discovered that he was innocent of the charge, on which he made the amende ho- 
norable before the whole regiment. It was here that those military qualifications first 
developed themselves, which afterwards crowned his career with unfading glory. It 
was in this campaign that he received the only severe wound ever inflicted by the 
bullets of his enemy. On a military expedition, accompanied by two soldiers, he 
was surprised by the fire of a large party of Indians. The two soldiers were in- 
stantly killed, and Morgan received a ball in the back part of the neck, which, after 
dreadfully crushing his jaw, escaped by his mouth. By clinging to the neck of his 
horse, and urging the animal with his heels, he was carried into the fort, w^here he 



96 MAJOR GENERAL DANIEL MORGAN. 

arrived in a perfectly senseless condition. But, by judicious treatment, he recovered, 
living dreadfully to revenge the death of his comrades and his own mutilation It 
was at this period that he met Colonel Washington, afterwards so renowned in the 
history of our independence. A most intimate acquaintance sprung up betw^een 
them, which lasted during life. 

When Morgan heard of the events at Lexington and Concord, he raised a com- 
pany of riflemen, — afterwards so famous in the war, — and proceeded to Cambridge, 
to offer his services to Washington. He was joined to, and led the van of, the expe- 
dition against Canada, under Arnold, and exhibited the utmost bravery in all the 
subsequent events of that disastrous campaign, in which, after the most brilliant 
manoeuvres, he was overpowered by numbers, and became, with his noble band, 
prisoners of war. While a prisoner, every art was used to seduce him to join the 
British army ; but he rejected every proposition with scorn. 

He w^as soon after exchanged, made colonel in the Continental army, placed 
at the head of the rifle rangers, by Washington, and sent to the assistance of Gates, 
on the fall of Ticonderoga. He took a very prominent part in the battle of Saratoga, 
which put a period to the celebrated expedition of Burgoyne, and led to his sur- 
render. The enemy attributed their defeat on that occasion to the activity and gen- 
eralship of Morgan and his brave rifle rangers, notwithstanding the self-conceited 
and narrow-minded Gates, by reason of a petty jealousy, in his report of that bril- 
liant battle, withheld the credit due to 1his brave soldier. 

As d mark of their high respect, and for his effective conduct at Saratoga, Con- 
gress conferred on Morgan the title of brigadier general, and his neighbors named 
his plantation " Saratoga," which name it bears to this day. On receipt of his com- 
mission, he was ordered to join Gates, in the south, but did not reach him in season 
to prevent his defeat at the battle of Camden. Flushed with victory, the British 
commander sent General Tarleton, one of the bravest and most unrelenting foes- to 
America, with a greatly superior force, to meet and annihilate Morgan. Nothing 
daunted at the imposing array, seconded by his brave compeers, Colonels Washing- 
ton, Pickens, and Howard, he met the furious onset with a stout heart and hand ; and 
such was the ungovernable fury of "the rangers," and the other troops, that Tarle- 
ton's force was utterly annihilated, and himself obliged to fly for his life. The num- 
ber of prisoners taken by Morgan in this splendid but bloody affair exceeded that 
of his whole army. This battle put a finishing stroke to the war in the south, and 
led ultimately to the surrender of Cornwallis. 

Nothing of importance occurred in the military career of Morgan after this. Con- 
gress voted him and his brave officers thanks and medals ; and soon after the war 
closed, with all his honors clustering around his glorious name, he retired to his farm 
at Saratoga. In the interval between this period and 1800, he was a member of 
Congress for two sessions, and served his country in several capacities with entire 
satisfaction. In this last-named year, he removed to Winchester, where, after two 
years of great suffering, he expired on the 6th of July, 1802, aged sixty-six. 




CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL. 



THIS eminent lawyer and statesman was born in Fauquier county, Virginia, 
on the 24th of September, 1755. His early education was desultory, and far 
from being thorough : indeed, he was self-educated. When the question of Amer- 
ican independence was reaching its culminating point, young Marshall was about 
eighteen, and entered into its discussion with gi'eat zeal and devotion. He joined 
a volunteer company in order to learn the art of war, and made the best use of his 
knowledge by the training of a company of raw militia in his neighborhood. In 
1775, he received the appointment of first lieutenant in a company of minutemen, 
and entered immediately into active service, where he rendered important aid in the 
defeat of Lord Dunmore, at Great Bridge, and subsequently in driving the English 
troops from Norfolk. In 1777, he was promoted to the rank of captain, and pro- 
ceeded north, where he figured in the memorable battles of Brandy^vine, German- 
town, and Monmouth. 

On the capitulation of Cornwallis, Mr. Marshall resumed the practice of law, 
which he had commenced in 1780. He soon rose to distinction as a lawyer, and 
was called upon to devote his acute mind to political affairs. In 1782, he was sent 
to the legislature of his native state, and elected a member of the executive council 



08 CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL. 

the same year. He was mamed the following year to Miss Ambler, daughter to the 
treasm'er of the state. 

During the agitation of the momentous questions ol state and national policy, in 
which all America took such deep interest, and which lasted from the close of the 
war to the year 1800, Mr. Marshall was among the foremost and mightiest cham- 
pions of '• liberty with order," and was always found on the side of Washington, 
Hamilton, and Madison. He was a member of the state legislature nearly all this 
time ; was a very active and efficient member of the convention called to consider the 
expediency of adopting the national constitution ; was engaged in a constantly grow- 
ing practice of his profession, and discharged a variety of public duties, to which 
he was called by his fellow-citizens. He also declined the offer of United States 
Attorney General, as well as that of Minister to France, offered by Washington ; 
but was persuaded the following year to accept the latter appointment. Return- 
ing from that unsuccessful mission in 1798, he, at the earnest solicitation of Wash- 
ington, consented to become a candidate for Congi-ess ; to which he was elected, 
and took his seat in December, 1799. Pending his election, he was offered a place 
upon the bench of the Supreme Court, but declined the honor. 

Among the bright stars of that congressional galaxy, Mr. Marshall's name shines 
as one of the most brilliant. His acute and discriminating reason, his calm and 
sober judgment, his fearless decision in favor of what he deemed to be right, and 
which so conspicuously marked his career while he was Chief Justice of the United 
States, were felt and confessed by all his noble compeers. 

In 1800. he was nominated to the office of Secretary of War, and, notwithstand- 
ing his most vehement protestation, the nomination was unanimously ratified by 
the Senate. But the rupture between Adams and Colonel Pickering occurring 
about this period, Mr. Marshall was offered and accepted the office of Secretary of 
State, vacated by the resignation of that gentleman. He filled this important sta- 
tion but a short time, for in January, 1801, he became Chief Justice of the United 
States, which office he adorned for a period of forty-five years. His death occurred 
in 1846, at the age of ninety-one. 

What Cicero said of a great man of his own times, may, with equal truth, be 
applied to Chief Justice Marshall, and form a graceful conclusion to our otherwise 
imperfect sketch. " Nihil acute invcniri potuit in eis causis, qnas scripsit, niJdl [nt ita 
dicam) subdole, nihil verside, quod ille non viderit; nihil siibliliter did, nihil presse, 
nihil enucleate, quo feri possit limatius.-^ 




LIEUTENANT GENERAL JOHN BURGOYNE. 



r|>HlS gallant and accomplished soldier was the natural son of Lord Bingley, 
JL and was born in England. Entering the army at an early age, in 1762 he 
commanded a body of troops sent to Portugal to defend that kingdom against 
the Spaniards. On his return, he was chosen privy councillor, and elected to Par- 
liament. During the war of the Revolution, he came to America, and, in 1777, was 
appointed to the command of the northern army, and ordered to open a communica- 
tion between New York and Canada, thus cut off New England from the other 
states, and then overrun the whole country. At the head of a splendid army of 
about fifteen thousand troops, and several thousand savages, whom he had purchased 
into his service with gold and promises of spoil ; having most abundant munitions 
of artillery, and every appointment an army could desire ; surrounded by a brilliant 
and gallant staff, Burgoyne set out from Quebec in the most imposing manner, 
issuing the most bombastic and threatening bulletins, and adopting as his motto, 
" This army must not reireatJ' 

How this doughty general made his descent on Ticonderoga and Fort George, 
taking them without scarce a blow ; how he pursued his way through the country 
towards the H»dson, carrying devastation and spreading terror on every hand; how 



100 LIEUTENANT GENERAL JOHN BURGOYNE. 

the affrighted inhabitants fled at his terrible coming, or basely sought his protec- 
tion by abandoning their country ; how he pursued the retreating American army 
across the lake to Skeensboro', and thence to Fort Edward, on the Hudson ; how 
Colonel Ethan Allen taught the proud general a bitter lesson at Bennington, which 
was soon followed by another from Arnold, at Fort Schuyler ; how the American 
army, under Gates and Schuyler, gave him a most warm reception at Stillwater , 
how, at Bemis's Heights, on the plains of Saratoga, that brilliant army, with its 
splendid appointments, stores and magazines, fell into the hands of our noble army, 
and how the valiant and boastful Burgoyne gave up his sword into the hands of his 
captor, Gates, — all this we have recorded in the memoirs of those gallant men who 
aided in bringing about this great deliverance to our oppressed and suffering nation. 

Never was greater disappointment experienced by vainglorying man — never was 
greater exultation of an emancipated people ! The nation breathed again, and hope 
once more animated the American bosom. 

General Burgoyne marched with his army to Cambridge, a prisoner of war, from 
whence he sailed, on parole, to England, where he was received with many marks 
of contempt, denied the presence of his sovereign, and finally was ordered to Amer- 
ica as a prisoner of war. But the state of his health would not permit it, and he 
was, after a season, suffered to offer his vindication to his government, and imme- 
diately resigned his honors and emoluments to the crown, the latter amounting to 
fifteen thousand dollars per annum. 

Towards the close of the war, when the ministry, and a large majority of Parlia- 
ment, seemed .disposed to prosecute the contest with greater vigor, he took sides 
with the opposition. " I know," said he, during the debate, " that it is impossible 
to conquer America. Passion, prejudice, and interest may operate suddenly and 
partially; but when we see one principle pervading an entire continent, — the Amer- 
icans resolutely encountering difficulty and death for years, — it must be a strong 
vanity and presumption in our minds which can only lead us to imagine that they 
are not in the right." 

The remainder of his life was spent as a private gentleman, and in the enjoyment 
of the pleasures of literature, the chase, and society. He ^vrote several minor works, 
and kept a very faithful and elegant journal of his American campaign. He died 
by a fit of the gout, August 4, 1792. 




GILBERT STUART. 



GILBERT CHARLES STUART — so stands his name upon the church 
record of his christening, although, from political motives, he afterwards 
dropped entirely the middle name — was born at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1754. 
His father was a millwright, and manufacturer of snufF, and originated in Scotland. 
The youth of Stuart is barren of interest. He is represented as a headstrong boy, 
casting otT parental restraint, and acting agreeably to his own wild impulses ; yet 
generous and noble in his nature. Having a great passion for music, and the fasci- 
nation of painting being strong upon him, he was saved from the downward fate in 
which such strong \vaywardness and imbecile parental authority so often terminate. 

The well-timed visit of a relative, who was struck with the remarkable talent dis- 
played in some of his drawings, decided the bias of his mind, and determined him 
to devote his genius to painting. 

Dr. Waterhouse was an early friend of Stuart, and, in 1773, they founded an 
academy, in which they studied and practised together until 1775, when Waterhouse 
went to London. Thither om- young artist soon followed. After much hardship, 



102 GILBERT STUART 

and some suffering, he received an introduction to the benevolent West, and soon 
became his pupil. His fame was now made certain, for JVIr. West was the bright 
artistic star of London, and his proficiency was rapid and sure. 

He returned to America in 1793, being drawn thither, as he declared, by a burn- 
ing desire to paint the picture of the Father of his Country. How admirably he 
succeeded in the patriotic purpose, all the world know ; and for his noble likeness 
of Washington all Aiuerica is grateful. An eminent artist, speaking of this picture, 
exclaims, " A nobler personification of wisdom and goodness, reposing in the majesty 
of a serene conscience, is not to be found on canvas." 

After this chef cVoenvre, ]Mr. Stuart resided for a short period in Washington, and, 
in 1805, removed to Boston, where he spent the remnant of his days in the un- 
dimmed possession of his genius, diligently applying himself to his profession until 
his death, which occiured in July, 1828. 

We will conclude this hasty sketch with an anecdote, which we do not remember 
ever to have seen in print, and which exhibits the great power of our artist to por- 
tray, in his faces, the striking characteristics of his sitters. When Mi-. Stuart had 
completed the picture of the elder Adams, and on which he had bestowed the great- 
est care, he invited a number of the friends of Mr. Adams, among whom was 
Washington, to see it. At the time appointed, Mr. Adams, with his friends, met 
the painterdn his studio, who had placed the picture in the most favorable light be- 
side that of Washington. For some minutes a profound silence was observed, when 
Mr. Adams, advancing close to the pictures, in his usual vehement manner, and 
pointing to the portrait of Washington, exclaimed, " There is a man, gentlemen, 
v\lio knew ivhen to keep his mouth shut ; there is one," pointing to his own portrait, 
" who never did.' 




JOHN PAUL JONES. 



THIS daring naval commander -was the fifth child of John Paul, a poor but re- 
spectable gardener, and was born at Arbigland, in the south of Scotland, near 
the Firth of Solway, on the 6th of July, 1747. At the early age of six or eight, he 
used to be seen rigging out his mimic fleet of chips, and giving imperious commands 
to imaginary sailors engaged in a bloody naval fight. At twelve, he entered the 
merchant marine service, and, purchasing his indentures at eighteen, became master 
of a brig engaged in the American slave trade, which he soon left in disgust. He 
embarked as passenger in another brig for home. The master and mate both died 
on the homeward passage, and he w^as called to her command ; in which office the 
owners kept hiin for several voyages, when he was promoted to the command of 
a large London ship in the West India trade. 

In his voyages, young Paul had made several visits to various parts of the Amer- 
ican continent ; and, in 1773, having occasion to reside in Virginia while the estate 
of an elder brother, recently deceased, was settled, he became enamoured of the coun- 
try, and resolved to make it his own. Little dreaming of the scenes of glorious 
activity that were before him, he resolved to settle down into the life of a Virginia 
planter. But the stirring scenes of the Revolution roused him from his repose, and 



104 JOHN PAUL JONES. 

decided him to engage in the contest for freedom with the colonists. About this 
time he assumed, as his patronymic, the name of Jones — for what reason does not 
appear. 

When, in 1775, Congress resolved to equip a fleet for the defence of our shores, 
we find the name of John Paul Jones at the head of the list of first-class lieuten- 
ants. As subordinate in the Alfred, and commander in the Providence, he signal- 
ized himself as a brave and sagacious officer. He is said to have been the first man 
Ihat ever run vp the stars and stripes to masthead. 

As commander of the Ranger, of eighteen guns, he sailed to Brest, and obtained 
a salute to his flag from the French — the first that was ever accorded to it. After 
a brilliant cruise, he sailed to France, and there obtained, after almost superhuman 
efforts, and a deep and persevering diplomacy, an old ship called the Due de Duras. 
After much more plotting and counterplotting, in which he exhibited a tact and skill 
worthy a much more experienced statesman, he obtained permission to give the old 
ship a new name, and selected "Ze Bon Homme Richard,^^ out of compliment to 
Dr. Franklin, whose assistance had largely contribvited to his success. 

Having been advanced to a captaincy. Commander Jones put to sea with a fleet 
of seven vessels, hoisting his flag upon the Bon Homme Richard. To the terror of 
the English, he cruised along the coast of the United Kingdoms, entering their 
rivers, and indeed their very harbors, taking prizes and men, burning ships, and com- 
mitting various other depredations ; and on the 23d of September, 1779, fought, by 
moonlight, his celebrated, and by far his most bloody and successful, battle with 
the British frigate Serapis, in size, men, metal and all other appointments, greatly 
superior to his own ship. In the early part of the action, the vessels became entan- 
gled, and were lashed side to side, — stern to bow, and bow to stern, — in which 
condition they fought with such fury that the Bon Homme was so disabled that she 
went to the bottom the next day, and the Serapis was so cut up as hardly to be able 
to carry the victors and their prisoners info port. 

This splendid victory gave the crowning ec/at to one of the most brilliant cruises 
that the world had ever witnessed, and dazzled all Europe, filling America with joy 
and pride. After many sharp conflicts with the enemy, and daring exploits, and 
hairbreadth escapes, he reached Philadelphia in the winter of 1781, where he was 
received with many marks of distinction. Congress voted its thanks, and gave him 
command of the America, then building at Portsmouth ; the French king invested 
him with a cross of honor, and his praise was the theme of song and prose all over 
the nation. 

Before the America \vd.s finished, the war had closed, and Commodore Jones 
passed the rest of his life in bloodless but important public service abroad, and 
died at Paris on the 18th of July, 1792. 

Ardent in his temperament, and somewhat irascible, fearless of censure, and care- 
less of applause, acting on his own judgment, and assuming all the responsibility of 
his conduct, it is not surprising that he had enemies. But a careful investigation of 
his motives and actions has convinced every one, long ago, of his upright patriotism, 
unflinching honor, and unbending truth, as well as of his uncommon sagacity and 
unshrinkins: valor. 




MAJOR GENERAL PHTLIP SCHUYLER. 



r¥"^HIS gallant officer was born at Albany, on the 22d of November, 1733. He 
J_ lost his father early, and the superintendence of his education fell to the charge 
of his mother, a woman of strong, cultivated mind, and deep religious character. 
At fifteen, he was put to school at New Rochelle, where he devoted himself to the 
acquisition of mathematics and the other exact sciences, together with the Latin 
and French languages. He entered the army on the breaking out of the French 
war, in 1755. In 1758, his activity and zeal attracted the attention of Lord Howe, 
who appointed him to office in the commissariat department, the ardvious and diffi- 
cult duties of which he discharged to the entire satisfaction of his general. 

Between the peace of 1763 and the war of the Revolution, Colonel Schuyler 
filled various civil offices. In 1775, he was elected a delegate to the Continental 
Congress, by which he was immediately elected a major general of the Continental 
army, and despatched to the command of the army in northern New York. The 
result justified the choice. Under his vigilant supervision the army improved in 
( rder and efficiency. Early in July, he was ordered to the northern frontier of New 
York, with instructions to reduce Crown Point and Ticonderoga, " and, if practicable, 



106 MAJOR GENERAL PHILIP SCHUYLER. 

to take possession of St. Johns, Quebec, and Montreal," in which he was to be 
joined by the eastern army, under Arnold, already on its march through the wilder- 
ness of Maine on its bootless mission. Falling sick, General Schuyler resigned the 
command of the army to the brave, but unfortunate, Montgomery. The luckless 
issue of that campaign is too well known to follow it any further in this place. 

But the supplies of the northern army devolved still on General Schuyler, and 
nothing but an untiring sagacity and comprehensiveness enabled him to keep that 
army from perishing. In no situation of his life did he exhibit in higher perfection 
those splendid qualities of mind and heart which constituted him one of the 
bravest and most chivalrous officers of the Revolution. The effects of his clear- 
sighted and cool-headed diplomacy were speedily felt ; while before the terrible 
marcli of Burgoyne the scattered forces of the northern army v^^ere enabled safely to 
retreat upon the head-quarters of their general. 

In gathering the scattered troops of that defeated army ; in replacing the muni- 
tions of war which had fallen into the hand of the enemy; in annoying and im- 
peding the progress of Burgoyne, and in preparing to give the last blow to his 
arrogance and pride, Schuyler stood confessed a great and brave soldier ; while in 
his demeanor towards his officers, and his tender care of his men, the goodness of 
his heart shone conspicuously, and marked him a man and brother. But he was 
destined to be robbed of the prize for which he had sacrificed so much, and so nobly 
striven. By reason of petty jealousies. Congress was led to deprive him of his com- 
mand on the very eve of the battle of Saratoga, and General Gates was permitted 
to bear off the palm of glory for which he had not moved a finger. 

Many were the accusations brought against this gallant officer. He was tried, 
and honorably acquitted ; and Congress offered him repeated honors, all of which 
he firmly resisted, sending in his resignation, which, after long delay, M^as accepted, 
and he withdrew from the army. 

His services did not end with his military career. He was chosen by his fellow- 
citizens to many high offices of honor and trust. In 1778-9, he was a delegate to 
the old Congress, and, for several years after, a member of the Senate of the State 
of New York. He labored assiduously for the adoption of the Constitution of the 
United States, and was elected to the Senate, on its organization, in 1789. After 
serving a few years in the Senate of his native state, he was once more elected to 
the Senate of the United States. Ill health compelled him to resign his seat in that 
august body, and he spent the remainder of his life in dignified and honorable retire- 
ment, universally venerated and beloved, and died on the 18th of November, 1804, 
at the age of seventy-one. 




JOHN BUOOKS. 



GOVERNOR JOHN BROOKS was born of poor, but respectable, parents, in 
Medford, Massachusetts, in 1752. His father was a farmer, and John pursued 
the same vocation during the early part of his life. Without the advantages of aca- 
demic instruction, he acquired a sufficient knowledge of his own and the Latin tongue 
to begin the study of medicine. He commenced the practice of his profession in 
the adjacent town of Reading, just prior to the difficulties between the colonies and 
the mother country. He entered with zeal into the spirit of the Revolution, and 
supported it with his ivords and his hands. He raised a company of minute-men, 
and drilled them in military exercises, himself taking lessons from the manoeuvring 
of the British army in Boston. He took part in the skirmishes at Lexington and 
Concord, and, on the organization of the army, received the commission of major 
in Colonel Bridge's regiment. He rendered essential aid in the construction of the 
works of defence on Breed's Hill, going the rounds with Colonel Prescott, on the 
night of the 16th of June. They reconnoitred so silently as to hear the sentry on 
board the British man-of-war proclaim " all's well." He did not partake of the glory 
or toil of the fight of the 17th, having been despatched, by the commanding officer, 
to the head quarters of Washington, at Cambridge, which duty he performed on foot. 



108 JOHN BROOKS. 

Major Brooks was in constant service, and rendered most important aid to the 
distressed and ill-disciplined army of freedom. An excellent disciplinarian, his 
regiment became a model of soldierly bearing, and won the thanks of the com- 
mander-in-chief. He aided in the construction of the works on Dorchester Heights, 
and, when the British army evacuated Boston, marched with Washington's army to 
Long Island. In the retreat of the army from Long Island, as well as in the subse- 
quent affair at White Plains, he distinguished himself as a brave and skilful officer. 

In the spring of 1777, Brooks, having been made lieutenant colonel, w^as ordered 
to join the northern army, under Schuyler, and shared the toil and reverses of that 
disastrous campaign. He took a conspicuous part in the battles of the 19th of Sep- 
tember and 7th of October, and shared in the glorious result — the annihilation of 
Burgoyne's splendid and boastful hosts. He was with the army in its winter quar- 
ters at Valley Forge, and was a powerful coadjutor wi»th Baron Steuben in improving 
the discipline and comfort of our miserably accoutred soldiers. 

When, in the following spring, that wide defection in our army, which came so 
near annihilating the hopes of every true patriot, was so timely discovered by 
Washington, Colonel Brooks was one of the fearless few who never faltered, never 
doubted. Then that noble band fought their most glorious battle, in which, although 
no blood was spilled, more glory accrued to the victors, and more good to their coun- 
try, than by all the sanguinary victories of the Revolution. 

At the close of the war, Dr. Brooks resumed his profession in Medford, and, by 
his urbanity of address and kindness of spirit, soon won upon the regard and affec- 
tion of his townsmen, and established himself in a respectable and growing business. 
He was soon called to public life, in the duties of which he exhibited as great diplo- 
matic skill as, in the army, he had military knowledge and bravery. He was made 
a major general of the Massachusetts militia soon after the close of the war ; was 
frequently chosen to the General Court of the commonwealth ; was a delegate to 
the convention of 1788, elected to adopt the new constitution ; for several years was 
a senator in the Senate of Massachusetts, and member of the executive council; 
was chosen adjutant general under the administration of Governor Eustis ; and, in 
1816, he succeeded that popular public officer in the chief magistracy of the state, 
which office he held from 1816 to 1822, discharging its duties with efficiency and 
grace. At his death, he held the office of president of the Massachusetts Medical So- 
ciety, the Cincinnati Society, the Washington Monument Society, and the Bunker 
Hill Monument Association. At difierent periods, he received from the University at 
Cambridge the degrees of " Master of Arts " and " Doctor of Laws." He died in 
January, 1825. 

Chief Justice Parker speaks thus of Governor Brooks, soon after his decease : 
" He was one of the last and best samples of that old school of manners which, 
though it has given way to the ease and convenience of modern times, will be 
regretted by some as having carried away with it many of the finest and most del- 
icate traits of social intercourse." 




BRIGADIEU GENERAL ?IENRY LEE 



H 



ENRY LEE was born in Virginia, on the 29th of January, 1756, and was 
graduated from Princeton College in 1774. The troubled period of history 
in which he entered upon manhood tested the metal of all men of those times. The 
call of his country upon young Lee found a quick and deep response in his patriotic 
breast, and, at the age of twenty, we find him in command of a company of horse, 
one of a regiment raised by Virginia to aid in the war, which had already com- 
menced, and under the command of Colonel Theodoric Bland. Soon after joining 
the main army, in the summer of 1777, for a gallant defence of his troop against 
the attack of a yery superior force of British cavalry, he received the thanks of 
Washington, and a major's commission. 

In 1779, Major Lee formed a plan for the surprise of the British garrison at Powle's 
Hook, which he executed with such " prudence, address, and bravery," that Congress 
voted him a gold medal, commemorative of that brilliant affair, and created him a 
colonel. In the campaign of 1780, he participated in the dangers of General Greene's 
retreat before the advance of Cornwallis, forming the rearguard to the retiring army, 
and exhibiting great courage and address. The retreat safely effected. General 
Greene despatched Colonel Lee and his legion to watch Cornwallis, and render aid 



110 BRIGADIER GENERAL HENRY LEE. 

and encouragement to the whigs of the south. In this desultory duty, he was en- 
gaged in several smart skirmishes, where the superior skill and bravery of his troop 
became more than a match for the superior numbers of the enemy. 

The battle of Guilford checked the triumphant march of Cornwallis, and caused 
him to retire on Wilmington. In this battle. Colonel Lee took a conspicuous part, 
and rendered essential aid. 

Leaving Cornwallis to act as he might think proper, General Greene made an im- 
mediate movement southward, for the purpose of restoring South Carolina and 
Georgia to the Union. This plan, of such importance to our country, was the 
child of Lee, and readily adopted by Greene. Previous to his departure, General 
Greene despatched Lee and his horsemen to join our glorious Marion, and with him 
to assault the minor posts of the enemy in the neighborhood. Forts Watson, Mott, 
and Granby speedily surrendered to the headlong prowess of these brave brethren 
in arms; and on his way to join General Pickens,. who had been ordered to attempt 
the possession of Augusta, Lee surprised and took Fort Galphin. 

On the reduction and surrender of Augusta, which soon followed, Lee rejoined 
the army of Greene, and rendered essential aid in the siege of Ninety-Six, and the 
battle of Eutaw Springs. 

Soon after this latter event, Lee was despatched to the army under Washington, 
then set down before Yorktown, and arrived in season to participate in the glorious 
events which speedily followed, and which put an end to the war in the south. 
With this event ended the active military life of this brave man, of whom General 
Greene said, " His services have been greater than those of any one man attached to the 
southern armyT 

On his return home. Colonel Lee married the daughter of Philip Ludwell Lee. 
In 1786, he was selected as one of the Virginia delegates to the general Congress, 
and held his seat until the adoption of the Federal Constitution. He was also a 
member of the convention called in his native state for the ratification of that act. 
In 1792, he was chosen Governor of Virginia, which office he filled for three suc- 
cessive years. In 1799, he was once more returned to Congress, where, on the death 
of Washington, he was selected to pronounce the eulogium on that beloved man. 
It was in this eulogy that occurred those memorable words, repeated so often in con- 
junction with the revered name of Washington, " First in war, first in peace, and 
first in the hearts of his countri/men." 

While accidentally at Baltimore, during the year of 1812, in defending the house 
of his friend from the deadly attacks of an infuriated mob, he received such injuries 
as to destroy his health, which continued to fail until the 25th of March, 1818, when 
he expired, in the sixty-third year of his age. 

Open and cordial in his address, frank and confiding in his fsiendships, free of 
purse and hospitable of board, bold and chivalrous in the defence of his own, as 
well as the rights of others, he won the admiration of all his acquaintance, and 
retained, to their deaths, the love and esteem of his brave superiors, Greene and 
Washington. 




WILLIAM PINKNEY. 



WILLIAM PINKNEY was born at Annapolis, Maryland, March 17, 1764. 
His father was a staunch loyalist, and sympathized with England in her 
struggle for supremacy over her American colonies in the war of our Revolution ; 
while the son was, from earliest life, enlisted on the side of the patriots. 

With an extremely deficient early education, his personal application, and strong 
and quick natural perceptions, made up for the deficiency, and placed him among 
the foremost of his acquaintances and friends. He first studied medicine ; but feel- 
ing that it did nol chime with his inclinations, he turned to the law, and was admit- 
ted to the bar in 1786, removing the same year to Harford county, for the practice 
of his profession. In 1789, he married Ann Maria, the sister of Commodore 
Rodgers, by whom he had a numerous family. 

In 1792, Mr. Pinkney was elected a member of the executive council, and, in 
1795, a delegate to the state legislature. In the year following, he was appointed, 
by President Washington, a commissioner of the United States, under the seventh 



112 WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

article of Mr. Jay's treaty, and embarked, accordingly, for England. During his res- 
idence abroad, questions of most vital importance on international law and reciprocity 
came before the commissioners, on which he gave his WTitten opinions. These 
papers exhibit a profound knowledge and clear apprehension of the subjects dis- 
cussed, and won for him the admiration of the board, and the praise of his govern- 
ment and countrymen. 

In 1805, shortly after his return from England, he removed to Baltimore, and was 
immediately appointed Attorney General of Maryland. In the following year, he 
was once more sent to England, to treat with that government on those aggravating 
questions which resulted in the war of 1812. After spending several years abroad, 
mostly occupied in severe diplomatic labors, he returned to the United States in 
1811. In September of the same year, he was sent to the Senate of Maryland, 
and, in December following, was appointed, by President Madison, Attorney General 
of the United States. 

Mr. Pinkney entered with great spirit into the controversies out of which grew^ the 
war of 1812 ; taking the democratic side of the question. During the war, he com- 
manded a battalion, which rendered some service. He fought with bravery at the 
battle of Bladensburgh, and was severely wounded in that action. Soon after this 
affair, he was elected to Congress, and, in 1816, was appointed minister to the court 
of St. Petersburg. 

On the return of Mr. Pinkney from Russia, he was, in 1820, retm-ned as member 
of the Senate of the United States, where he exhibited his great knowledge, and 
political as well as legal acumen, in the discussion which took place in that body on 
the admission of Missouri into the Union. While in the Senate, several very im- 
portant trials came before the Supreme Court of the United States, in which he 
was retained as counsel. These demanded of him almost superhuman exertions, 
under the pressure of which his health yielded, and he fell a prey to an acute disease 
on the 25th of February, 1822. 

Thus perished, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, one of the brightest ornaments 
of the American bar, and most brilliant statesmen and orators of his age. 




MAJOR GENERAL HENRY KNOl. 



FEW men contributed so largely to the success of our revolutionary struggle as 
the subject of this notice. As the projector, author, and first commander of 
the artillery connected with the Continental army, and holding the first post of com- 
mand of that portion of our army during the whole war ; having, as he had, the 
entire confidence and esteem of Washington, and fighting by his side, his opportuni- 
ties were equal to his desire, and his success tantamount to his genius and bravery. 

General Henry Knox was born in Boston, July 25, 1750. He early married the 
daughter of a staunch loyalist, and was already an officer in the British army in 
Boston when the struggle of the Revolution commenced. His whole soul was fired 
in the cause of freedom, and he contrived to escape from Boston, and, presenting 
himself at the camp of Washington, offered his services to his country. His wife, 
who, notwithstanding her tory origin, fully sympathized with the patriots, accompa- 
nied him in his flight, secreting her husband's sword in the folds of her petticoat. 



114 MAJOR GENERAL HENRY KNOX. 

Tills noble woman adhered to his fortunes through eight years of peril and anxiety, 
deprivation and labor, and had the holy satisfaction of sharing her husband's joy in 
the established independence of their native land. 

\- Wliaii young Knox presented himself at Washington's head-quarters, our army 
was totally destitute of cannon, without which, he felt that it was impossible to 
cope with the British forces. There was no way of obtaining this needed supply 
but by transporting it from the dilapidated forts on the Canadian frontier. This 
dangerous and almost herculean labor was triumphantly performed by the gallant 
voung officer, and an artillery department of respectable force was thus added to 
our army, the command of which was bestowed upon Knox, with a brigadier gen- 
eral's commission. These guns were planted on Dorchester Heights, and the British 
army speedily compelled to evacuate Boston. 

General Knox, at the head of the artillery, was in constant service during the 
entire contest which succeeded, and generally under the immediate eye of Wash- 
ington, between whom and himself a strong affection existed, which lasted until the 
death of his distinguished and beloved commander. In the retreat from White 
Plains, in the battles of Trenton and Princeton, as well as those of Brandywine, 
Germantown, and Monmouth, as also at the siege of Yorktown, Knox and his artil- 
lery rendered most valuable aid, and contributed largely towards the expulsion of 
the enemy from our southern shores. When Cornwallis delivered up Yorktown, 
General Knox was one of the commissioners to negotiate the terms of capitulation. 

In 1785, under the old regime^ General Knox was Secretary of War until the new 
organization, when Washington immediately reappointed him to the same office, 
which he continued to hold until 1794, when Washington, having repeatedly refused 
to do so, reluctantly consented to accept his resignation, and he retired to his farm, 
in Thomaston, Maine, where he lived, in dignified and hospitable retirement, until 
the 25th of October, 1806, w^hen he died suddenly, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. 

How singular, that the brave warrior should tread so many fields of blood and 
carnage, and see hundreds falling on all sides, should escape so many thousand 
deaths, to come at last to his end by the most insignificant means ! The death of 
this good man, and patriot, and brave soldier, was occasioned by swallowing the 
bone of a chicken at his dinner I 

We cannot forbear relating a singular incident in the life of this brave man. 
When on his northern expedition, he fell in with Major Andre, and travelled in his 
company. The result of this accidental meeting was a mutual attachment, which 
grew into a strong friendship, so speedily to be concluded by the sanguinary and 
ignominious termination of the life of one, while the other was a member of the 
court martial which so reluctantly condemned the accomplished young Briton to the 
scaffold. General Knox used to say that this was the hardest duty he ever performed. 
We can well conceive it to have been so. 



PART III. 



EMBRACING THE PERIOD 

SUBSEQUENT TO THE WAR OF 

1812. 



f^- 



/(f 



S%.i%\ 




ANDREW JACKSON. 



THE Hero of New Orleans ! The incorrigible, the impracticable, the indom- 
itable, the incorruptible ! Headstrong, but always honest ; rash, but ever patri- 
otic ; he may have erred to his country's detriment at times, but treason had no place 
in his breast, and his country's good was his highest aim next to duty to his God. 
Fear he knew not, either on the battle-field, or befor£ that terrible power, public 
OPINION. His purpose once taken, no threats of his enemies, no persuasion of his 
friends, and no personal considerations, could shake it. Ever ready to assume the 
responsibility of his actions, he shrunk from no judgment and dreaded no conse- 
quences. 

Such a man's life must needs be one of stirring incidents, and such a man's fame 
must shed resplendent rays over the page of his history, or darken with clouds of 
Erebus the fair escutcheon of his glory. Accordingly no man has been so deified 
and damned as the subject of this article, as friends or foes have spoken. But im- 
partial history will, we think, sustain us in the character we have given him in this 
brief sketch. 

At fourteen years of age he commenced his military career, during the revolu- 
tionary war, and at that tender age was taken prisoner together with an elder 



118 ANDREW JACKSON. 

brother. The child was father to the man. When ordered by a British officer to 
the performance of some menial duty, he refused compliance, and was severely 
wounded with the sword which the Englishman disgraced. 

In the early part of the late war with England, Congress having voted to accept 
fifty thousand volunteers. General Jackson appealed to the militia of Tennessee, when 
twenty-five hundred enrolled their names, and presented themselves to Congress, with 
Jackson at their head. They were accepted, and ordered to Natchez, to watch the 
operations of the British in lower Mississippi. Not long after, he received orders 
from head-quarters, to disband his men and send them to their homes. To obey, he 
foresaw, would be an act of great injustice to his command, and reflect disgrace on 
the country, and he resolved to disobey. He accordingly broke up his camp and 
returned to Nashville, bringing all his sick with him, whose wants on the way he 
relieved with his private means, and there disbanded his troops in the midst of their 
homes. 

He was soon called to the field once more, and his commission marked out his 
course of duty on the field of Indian warfare. Here for years he labored, and fought, 
and diplomatized, with the most consummate wisdom and undaunted courage. It 
was about this time that the treaty of the " Hickory Ground " occurred, which gave 
the familiar sobriquet to the general of " Old Hickory." Finding themselves 
hemmed in on every side, the Indians determined to sue for peace. One of the 
principal chiefs voluntarily presented himself at Jackson's head-quarters, and with 
the dignity of a fallen king, which would have shed glory on any civilized hero, 
supplicated pardon. Jackson was struck with the noble bearing of the prostrate 
chief, and determining not to be outdone by a savage, suffered him to depart in 
peace, leaving it optional with him to join his tribe and assume a hostile attitude, or 
to retire from the scene of war ; assuring him that if again he should fall into his 
hands his life should be the forfeit. 

The crowning glory of his whole military career was the battle of New Orleans; 
which we pass over with this brief allusion, because so indelibly impressed on every 
American memory, and not likely speedily to be forgotten by the enemies of our 
country. 

At the close of the war he returned to his home in Nashville ; but in 1818 was 
again called on by his country to render his military services in the expulsion of the 
Seminoles. His conduct during this campaign has been bitterly condemned, and as 
highly applauded. An attempt in the House of Representatives to inflict a censure 
on the old hero for the irregularities of this campaign, after a long and bitter debate, 
was defeated by a large majority. 

In 1828, and again in 1832, General Jackson was elected to fill the presidential 
chair ; thus occupying that elevated position for eight successive years. It was a 
season of great financial embarrassment and internal division, and the measures he 
recommended and adopted were stringent. No man ever received more censure or 
praise for his administration of public affairs ; and we are not yet sufficiently removed 
from the scene of action, calmly to judge of all his acts. This judgment must be 
left to posterity. 



/r 




J% 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 



FEW men have passed so large a portion of life in active public employment as 
the sixth President of the United States. For more than threescore years, he 
was in the service of his country, serving her in many capacities, from Secretary of 
Legation at the early age of sixteen, to chief magistrate of the Union. 

John Quincy Adams was born at Quincy, Massachusetts, on the 11th of July, 
1767. His father was the patriot John Adams, of whom Jefferson said, " He was 
the great pillar of support to the Declaration of Independence, and its ablest 
advocate and champion on the floor of the house." His mother was the daughter 
of the Rev. William Smith, of Weymouth, a woman of gi-eat beauty and uncom- 
mon mental and moral endowments, in whose breast the fire of freedom burned as 
brightly as in that of her illustrious spouse. 

Perhaps there never transpired a happier combination of circumstances, to de- 
velop true genius, than fell to the lot of young Adams. To say nothing of his 
parentage, he was born at a period of great mental, political activity, and amidst 
scenes whose vibrations filled the whole earth with trembling. His childhood passed 
amidst the smoke and blood of our revolution, and his position placed him in 
conjunction with those great patriots and statesmen who were the unshrinking 



i:0 JOHN QU INC Y ADAMS. 

advocates and champions of American liberty. From early childhood, he followed 
his father to foreign courts, and resided abroad mostly until after the scenes of the 
revolution were brought to a close. Wishing to avail himself of a classical 
education, he returned to his native land, and in 1786, entered Harvard College, as 
a junior, at the age of eighteen ; and, on graduating, entered the law office of 
Theophilus Parsons, afterwards the dignified chief justice of Massachusetts for so 
many years. 

Mr. Adams was more a statesman and politician than a lawyer, and during the 
bitter controversies of Washington's administration, wrote several series of political 
articles in the Boston newspapers, which won for him the esteem of the president, 
and the applause of some of the greatest minds in both this country and England; 
and which doubtless occasioned his appointment as Minister of the United States 
at the Hague, in 1794, at the early age of twenty-seven. 

While minister at Holland, Mr. Adams w^as married to Miss Louisa Catharine 
Johnson, daughter of Joshua Johnson, Esq., of Maryland, United States consul at 
the port of London. In 1797, Mr. Adams was transferred to Berlin, whence he 
was recalled in 1801. Mr. Adams had now entered upon the career which ter- 
minated only with his life. He was elected to the Senate of Massachusetts in 
1802 — appointed United States Senator in 1803 — made Professor of Rhetoric and 
Belles Lettres in Harvard College in 1805 — sent Minister to Russia in 1809 — one 
of the Commissioners in the treaty of Ghent in 1815 — Minister to England the 
same year — appointed Secretary of State by Mr. Monroe in 1817 — elected Pres- 
ident of the United States in 1825 — chosen Member of Congres? in 1831, which 
office he filled with great ability, notwithstanding his great age, until the 21st of 
February, 1848, when he was struck with paralysis at his post in the House of 
Representatives, and died two days afterwards, at the great age of eighty. 

Mr. Adams was a man of rare gifts and rich acquisitions. A diligent student, 
and economical of his time, he found opportunity, amidst all his public cares, to 
cultivate his tastes for literature and tne sciences. He was one of the finest 
classical and belles-lettres scholars of his time, and, even in his old age, often aston- 
ished his hearers with the elegant classical allusions and rhetorical tropes wath 
which he enriched and embellished his own productions. His w^as, withal, an 
honest, straightforward mind, which not even his devout attachment to his political 
party was able to turn to base account. A dear lover of freedom, he was a bold 
promulgator of human rights, and a fearless defender of the oppressed, wherever 
they were to be found, and in whatever clime. 

To crown the whole, John Quincy Adams was a Christian. Not a mere mem- 
ber of a conventicle — not a pharasaic observer of outward forms alone — his 
religion was part, and largely so, of his nature, and entered into all his words and 
acts, and gave a charm and a grace to his old age which Religion alone can give. 




ROBEUT FULTON. 



IF there be any mind commanding the reverence of the ages, it is that which 
sees 

" the tops of distant thoughts, 
Which men of common stature never saw." 

Such was the gift of prophecy with which the Almighty enmantled the soul of 
Robert Fulton, whose monuments of brass and iron bestud every sea and land in 
the civilized world, and which shall endure as a proud trophy to self-sacrificing, ever- 
persevering genius while the earth endures. Such was the man whose birth was 
obscure, and whose childhood passed in neglect and ignorance. 

The father of Robert Fulton w^as an Irish emigrant, who, dying when he was a 
young child, left him without the means of education, and scarcely those of subsist- 
ence. The place which gave him birth was an obscure town of Pennsylvania ; the 
year, 1765 ; — the world is his birthplace, all time his natal day! 

The genius of Fulton first manifested itself in drawing and painting, and at 
seventeen we find him in Philadelphia, not only earning his own livelihood, but 
supporting his widowed mother and several sisters. He spent all his leisure hours 
in the cultivation of his intellect, and stored up, during this time, no inconsiderable 



122 ROBERT FULTON. 

amount of solid learning. In 1786, just as he was twenty-one, he went to Eng- 
land, and soon found himself domiciliated beneath the roof of his countryman 
Benjamin West, with whom he remained several years, and between whom and 
himself a warm friendship sprung up, which death alone interrupted. 

In 1796, Mr. Fulton went to France, and for seven years was an inmate of the 
family of his countryman Barlow. During this period, he studied, with great suc- 
cess, the French, Spanish, German, and Italian languages, together with natural 
philosophy, and the higher branches of mathematics. It was at this time, also, that 
he determined to carry his long-cherished plan of applying steam to the purposes 
of navigation into practical and useful effect. 

For many years steam had been used as a motive power, and many attempts had 
been made to apply it to navigation ; but to Mr. Fulton belongs the credit of having 
made the first successful application of steam to this end. In 1806, he returned to 
his native country, after having invented and made so many successful experiments 
with his celebrated " Navtilus " or submarine boat. 

Chancellor Livingston had made some unsuccessful experiments in steam naviga- 
tion previous to Mr. Fulton's return, and had obtained from the New York legisla- 
ture the passage of an act securing to him, on certain conditions, the exclusive right, 
for a term of twenty years, to navigate " by steam or fire " all the w"aters under the 
jurisdiction of the state. Meeting with Mr. Fulton in France, he felt certain that 
his practical good sense and thorough causality would accomplish the desirable 
results, and immediately associated him in the undertaking, and procured the 
renewal of the act, in favor of Fulton and himself, for twenty years from the date 
of its passage. 

After several unsuccessful experiments, — each of which, while it subjected them 
to much ridicule, both from the press and in the market-place, only added to the con- 
fidence of the persevering operators, — they at length brought their boat and ma- 
chinery to such a degree of perfection, as to advertise her for a particular day on 
which to make an experimental trip to Albany. At the time appointed, a crowd 
lined the wharves and shipping in the neighborhood, every one anxious to see how 
the matter would end. Some jeered, others laughed, a few were sanguine of suc- 
cess, and the multitude looked on in silence, and awaited the result. But when, at 
length, Fulton cast off the fasts of " The Clermont," and she stemmed the current 
of the noble Hudson at the rate of five miles per hour, a sudden change took place 
in the anxious throng, and one universal and prolonged shout announced to the 
world the triumph of Fulton ! 

Mr. Fulton died on the 24th of February, 1815, after a short illness occasioned 
by exposure in superintending the construction of a steam frigate, in the fifty-first 
year of his age, and was buried with civic and military honors, amidst the most 
marked expressions of regret and repoect. 




COMMODORE WILLIAM BAINBRIDGE. 



■YVflLLIAM BAINBRIDGE was born at Princeton, New Jersey, May 7, 1774. 
TT His early education was received in a common English school. At sixteen 
years of age, he entered the mercantile business, and went to sea in the employment 
of a house in Philadelphia. On a voyage to Holland, two years subsequently, as 
mate of the ship Hope, he saved the life of his captain from the vengeance of a 
mutinous crew ; for which he was promoted to the command of a ship trading witli 
the Dutch, and continued in the same employ until 1798, when, on the commence- 
ment of hostilities with France, our government appointed him to the command of 
the United States schooner Retaliation, of fourteen guns, with the rank of lieutenant 
in the navy. In 1800, he was promoted to the rank of captain, and sailed in the 
frigate George Washington, with presents to the Dey of Algiers. From this place, 
he sailed to Constantinople, bearing an ambassador with presents from the Dey to 
the Grand Seignior at the latter place. The ambassador was received with insult, 
and his presents rejected with scorn, while Bainbridge and his flag were treated with 
every mark of respect. On his return to Algiers, war was declared against France, 
and the French consul and all other citizens of France w^ere ordered to quit the coun- 
try in forty-eight hours. Captain Bainbridge received them all on board his frigate, 

9 



124 COMMODORE WILLIAM BAINBRIDGE 

and, having landed them at Alicant, sailed for Philadelphia, where he arrived in 
April, 1801. 

In June following, in command of the Essex frigate, he returned to the Mediter- 
ranean, to protect our commerce against Tripolitan depredations. In 1803, he was 
placed in command of the frigate Philadelphia, and joined the squadron under 
Commodore Preble ; and, while the commodore carried on negotiations, Captain 
Bainbridge proceeded to blockade Tripoli with the Philadelphia and Vixen, In 
chasing a strange sail, the frigate ran upon a reef of rocks, and was captured by the 
enemy, and carried into the harbor, where she lay until burned by Decatur, in Feb- 
ruary, 1804. 

On the breaking out of the war with England, in 1812, Commodore Bainbridge 
held the command of the navy yard at Charlestown, but was soon after appointed 
to the command of the Constellation ; and, on the arrival of the Constitution at 
Boston, he was transferred to that frigate, and in a short time rendered his name 
and his ship famous in the bloody conflict with the British frigate Java, Captain 
Lambert, which he captured, with only a loss of nine men. On board the enemy's 
ship, sixty men, besides the captain, were slain. Finding it impossible to bring the 
Java to the United States, she was blown up, her crew set on shore at St. Salvador, 
on parole, and Bainbridge returned home, where he and his crew were received with 
every demonstration of respect and enthusiasm. This was the second British man- 
of-war this noble ship had destroyed in a short space of time, and she became the 
pride of the nation. From the little damage she had sustained in her numerous 
conflicts with the enemy, she received the sobriquet of " Old Ironsides," a name 
which awakens a thrill of national pride in the bosom of every American citizen, 
and has become an idol to every sailor who loves to see the " stars and stripes " 
floating at his masthead. 

At the close of the war. Commodore Bainbridge sailed once more to the Mediter- 
ranean, in command of the Columbus seventy-four. This was the last cruise of 
this gallant naval officer, after Vvinch he retired from the sea altogether. 

On his return home, he commanded, for several years, at different naval stations 
in the United States, and was also one of the Board of Naval Commissioners. He 
died in Philadelphia, on the 27th of July, 1833. 

During the whole course of his public life. Commodore Bainbridge commanded 
the entire respect of his fellow-officers, and his countrymen generally, and, at his 
death, was sincerely mourned by the nation. 




MRS. MARCIA VAN NESS. 



WOMAN'S sphere seldom admits of ostentatious parade, and rarely gives 
opportunity for deeds which startle or dazzle the world ; but for the man- 
ifestation of heroic self-endurance, and sublime energy, it is not less rich than that 
in which moves her lord and master — proud, imperious man. And the record of 
her virtues belongs as much to history as the recital of those deeds which nearly fill 
the recorded page of the world's actions. 

On the 9th of May, 1782, on the qviiet banks of the Potomac, the wife of David 
Burns, Esq., a civil magistrate of respectable standing, gave birth to a daughter, who 
was baptized with the name of Marcia. As she grew up, her physical and mental 
powers developed in great harmony and beauty. To a person of exquisite form she 
added a softness and delicacy of mind which made her " the admired of all behold- 
ers." No pains were spared with her education, and, while the graces were culti- 
vated, the more solid accomplishments were not neglected. 

As she reached maturity, she insnared the heart of, and, on her twentieth birth- 
day, honored and blessed with her hand, the Hon. John Van Ness, member of 
Congi-ess from the State of New York. The union proved to be a happy one, and 
was crowned, the following year, with a daughter, — the only offspring to this 



12b MRS. MA RCI A VAN NESS 

-■narriag ..o grew up in beauty at her father's hearth, adorning his household, 

and rewarding the tender care and exceeding love of her parents by her deep religious 
character and lovely temper. At the age of eighteen, she became the wife of Arthur 
Middleton, Esq., with whom she lived but one short year, when she died in giving 
birth to the lifeless form of a son. 

It is at this point that the true character of Mrs. Van Ness began to manifest 
itself On their marriage, Mr. Van Ness removed to Washington, where he held, 
for many years, the Tiighest municipal offices, and, though his health was frail, his 
house at once became the centre of an elegant hospitality, where the graces and 
solid domestic qualities of its hostess became the theme of all whose good fortune 
it was to mingle in the tasteful reunions which enlivened his drawing-rooms, or 
made merry at his board. The shock produced by the death of this lovely and only 
child was terrible to the doting mother, and for a season she bowed to the blast 
like a stricken reed. But her native energy of character, quickened by heavenly 
confidence in the hand which had chastised, prevailed, and she resumed once 
more her noble bearing and Avonted cheerfulness. True, sadness made its deep 
lines on her fair face, and added a melancholy sweetness to her voice ; but a 
stranger would not have guessed 

" How living and how deep the wound " 

which she covered up so sacredly in her own bosom. 

Her home had ever been one of constant care ; and this care, maternal and Chris- 
tian, had extended to the lowest menial of her household. But now she felt that 
her heart needed a larger sphere of activity. Several years prior to this mournful 
event, she had been one of a number of lady-patronesses for the establishment of " The 
Washington City Orphan Asylum," and to this institution she resolved to trans- 
fer her maternal solicitude and duties ; and, with a delicate and inconceivably beau- 
tiful instinct, determined to erect as a monument, beside the grave of her davghier, a 
splendid and spacious building for the use of that benevolent association. This 
institution she endowed with her fortune, and while she lived devoted most of her 
time to the superintendency of its affairs as First Directress. 

It is difficvilt to conceive of a higher and holier exhibition of a mother's love, and 
Christian solicitude, and of a nobler consecration of the beautiful gifts with which 
Providence had endowed this accomplished woman. She died on the 9th of Sep- 
tember, 1832, after a long and painful illness, at the age of fifty years. 

" Who shall weep when the nghteons die ? 
Who shall mourn when the good depart ? 
When the soul of the godly away shall fly, 
Who shall lay the loss to heart ? " — Brainard. 




OSCEOLA. 



THIS remarkable Indian, sometimes called Powell^ was born in the Eveiglades 
of Florida, somewhere about the year 1804. His father was chief of the tribe, 
but not otherwise notorious than by his vagabond son, who spent the earlier years 
of his life in most inglorious barbarism. He was famous for his sagacity in hunting, 
his agility and strength in the athletic sports practised among his tribe, such as 
dancing, racing, shooting, wrestling, etc. As he grew up, he entered fully into the 
grievances of his tribe with the whites, and when the " war of title," otherwise 
called the " Seminole war," commenced, he at once took the field in defence of his 
fatherland. 

The Seminoles — the word signifies runaivays — were formerly a part of the 
Creek nation, and emigrated to Florida, where they increased and spread themselves 
abroad, until they became a great and powerful people. As the country became 
occupied by the whites, the hunting grounds of these " runaways " were needed for 
the habitation of the white man, and accordingly negotiations were set on foot by 
our government for the territory they occupied, which resulted in a treaty, stipulating 
the conditions of the relinquishment of their title. Here commenced the real difli- 



128 OSCEOLA 

culty, the Seminoles declaring that they had been deceived, and the treaty thereby 
vitiated, and the government insisting upon its fulfihiient. Negotiation followed 
negotiation, for a series of years, when war was carried into the homes of the poor 
Indian, and one of the most bloody and merciless struggles took place — the whites 
striving to expel the savages, and the Indians struggling to maintain and defend 
their homes and hunting grounds. Immense treasures and oceans of blood were 
expended, and for years nothing was won. 

In the early part of this cruel war, there arose an athletic, noble-looking young 
man, who, by universal consent, was called to be the deliverer of his people. This 
was no other than Osceola. With almost superhuman strength and energy, he 
travelled through the length and breadth of his tribe, encouraging resistance and 
slaughter to the whites. With the most consummate skill he evaded the American 
array, and beguiled it into some fatal ambuscade, where it fell a prey to savage 
cruelty. And when he could no longer avoid taking the field, bis presence inspired 
his brethren, and his wonderful feats in arms gave heart to the timid, and fired each 
brave with a more determined will. He was foremost in every fray, and his place 
was suro to be where the blows fell fastest and hardest. The unerring aim of his 
splendid rifle, and the exact and deadly force of his keen-edged and glittering toma- 
hawk, told fearfully on tlie ranks of the whites, while he seemed to bear a charmed 
mail, through which no American bullet could penetrate. His name became a terror 
to his enemies, and to his fellow-braves a countersign to victory and glory. 

Thus, for years, did the gigantic mind of this remarkable chief keep at bay the 
wealth and wisdom of the United States, when at length, in 1S3S, he fell into a 
snare, and became a captive. He was taken to Fort Moultrie, in South Carolina, 
where his mighty spirit chafed itself in its chains, until poor Osceola died of a 
broken lieart, on the 31st day of January, 1839, aged about 35 years. Thus 
perished, in the early years of his manhood, one of those few aboriginal heroes 
whose great and teeming lives deserve a full and elaborate record on the page of 
history — one who, " from a vagabond child, became," as says the Charleston Mercury, 
" the master spirit of a long and desperate war. He made himself — no man owed 
less to accident. Bold and decisive in action, deadly but consistent in hatred, dark 
in revenge, cool, subtle, sagacious in covincil, he established gradually and surely a 
resistless ascendency over his adopted tribe, by the daring of his deeds, the constan- 
cy of his hostility to the whites, and the profound craft of his policy. In council 
he spoke little — he made the other chiefs his instruments ; and what they delivered 
in public was the secret suggestion of the invisible master. Such was Osceola, who 
will be long remembered as the man that, with the feeblest means, produced the 
most terrible effects." 







JOHN C. CALHOUf^ 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN, the most distinguished statesman the South 
has ever produced, was a native of South Carolina, and was born in Abbe- 
ville District, on the 18th of March, 1782. He was of Irish descent, both on his 
father's and mother's side, and his family furnished several distinguished actors in 
the stirring scenes of the old French, Indian, and Revolutionary wars. Patrick 
Calhoun, the father of the statesman, was a bold and daring man, and had many 
personal encounters with the savages who dwelt in that region. An anecdote is 
related of him which illustrates the hazards of that period of our country's history, 
and the many shifts to which the inhabitants were often driven. Passing one 
day through a forest, he fell in with a stalwart Indian. Each was armed with 
a rifle. The discovery was mutual, and each sought the nearest screen to 
his person. Calhoun dropped behind a log, and the savage retreated to th(^ 
nearest tree. They were but a few rods apart, and as the slightest exposure 
was certain death, each sought to seduce the other from his hiding-place. It 
occurred to 'Calhoun, that if he could exhaust the Indian's ammunition, he would 
have him at his mercy. Gradually raising his hat on a stick an inch or two above 
the log, he was gratified to find it instantly perforated with the Indian's bullet. He 



130 JOHN C. CALHOUN. 

thus drew the fire of his enemy four times, when the savage, supposing that he had 
slain his foe, ventured to protrude his head a few inches, which was" instantly bored 
with the bullet of Calhoun, who returned to his home, bearing the red man's 
scalp as a trophy. 

From such stock was sprung, and amidst such scenes was nursed and grew up, 
the subject of this memoir. That part of the country where he resided was 
sparsely settled, and infested with hordes of savages ; schools were scarce and poor, 
with not an academy within fifty miles. Although he had a great passion for 
reading, and devoured every book which fell in his way, yet until he was nineteen 
years of age, his education was nothing. It was at this period, A. D. 1800, that he 
entered the academy of Rev. Dr. Waddel, in Columbia county, Georgia. This 
clergyman married a sister of Mr. Calhoun, but at the time spoken of, was living 
with his second wife. Here his progress was so rapid, that in two years he entered 
Yale College as a junior, and in 1804, graduated with the highest honors of his 
(•lass, just four years from the time of commencing his Latin grammar. During 
his college life, he gave brilliant signs of his coming greatness. President Dwight 
— between whom and himself a strong attachment had grown up — once said of 
him, " That boy Calhoun has talent enough to be President of the United States. 
;ind will become one yet, I confidently predict." 

The three following years were devoted to the study of his profession. He imme- 
diately applied for and obtained a license, and opened an office in his native district, 
where he entered at once into a full and successful practice of the law. But the 
bar was destined to be shorn of this beam of light. The troublous times of 
1810-12 called forth the energies of the wisest and the best men, and Mr. Calhoun 
was unanimously called to the forum. The attack of the British frigate Leopard 
on the American frigate Chesapeake hastened the crisis, and war was declared by 
Congress in 1812. Mr. Calhoun could not remain an idle spectator of these passing 
events. He mixed himself up with them, and was elected to the legislature of his 
state, where he served two years, with marked ability. Politics ran high, and Mr. 
Calhoun associated himself with the Republican party. 

In 1811, Mr. Calhoun took his seat in the councils of the nation, as a member of 
the Twelfth Congress, from his native district. This was one of the most remark- 
able sessions of Congress ever yet held; and Mr. Calhoun soon took a leading part 
in the great controversies which agitated the country, and made his name famous 
among the great names in that august body. His measures and speeches, through- 
out the six years he was a member of Congress, exhibit great statesmanship and 
patriotism. 

When Mr. Monroe came into office, he called on Mr. Calhoun to preside at the 
bureau of the War Department. He introduced many reforms into that department, 
and gave a character to our military organization not before attained. 

At the election which sent the names of Adams, Jackson, and Crawford to the 
House, as candidates for the presidency, Mr. Calhoun was chosen Vice President by 
:i large majority. On resigning that office he was soon returned as United States 
Senator, which office he held with distinguished ability up to the time of his 
ulecease, with the exception of a few years, during which he was Secretary of 
State under Mr. Tyler. He died at Washington, March 31, 1850. 




COMMODORE THOMAS MACDONOUGH. 



rpi 



IHE name of Macdonough has a charm which few great names possess. The 
-L temptations of place and power are so many and so alhiring, that but com- 
paratively few find themselves able to resist them. This brave officer seems to be 
among the exceptions. Not only did he keep himself free from all great vices, 
but he never debauched himself with those lesser sins which the young, hot blood 
is so ready to call trivial. His more graceless companions set snares for his feet, but 
he was never caught. It is a pleasure — heightened by its rare occurrence — to 
record such Spartan self-conqviest, such heroic virtue ; it is the fine, pure setting to 
the portrait of his gallant deeds. 

In the wintry month of December, 1783, in the county of Newcastle, and state 
of Delaware, our hero first saw the light of day. It is a source of regret that the 
early history of this gallant officer is lost. At the age of. fifteen, he obtained a mid- 
shipman's warrant in the navy. It was his fortune to lead, for some time, a life of 
inglorious inaction. His character is spoken of in praise, as " a young gentleman 
of great address and high promise, a favorite with both officers and men." 

In the Tripoline war, Macdonough had an opportunity to test his metal, and to 
give forth to the world the promise of his future prowess. When the brave Decatur 



132 COMMODORE THOMAS MAC DON OU (J II 

cli'tennuit.-d to burn tlie frigate Philaclel])hia, which had fallen into the hands of our 
enemies, he selected Macdonough as one of the young gallants for that dangerous 
expedition. His cool and fearless bearing in this bold and hazardous undertaking 
won for him the thanks of his superiors. 

While first lieutenant of the Siren, as she lay at anchor in the harbor of Gibraltar, 
and during the absence of the commander, a boat, sent from a British man-of-war, 
boarded an American brig, anchored near the Siren, and impressed one of its sea- 
men. Manning a gig, with a greatly inferior force, he overtook the boat of the 
pressgang, and acted so boldly and promptly as to overawe the officer of the boat, 
and recapture the seaman who had thus unceremoniously been kidnapped. The 
British captain, repairing in hot rage on board the Siren, demanded to know of 
Macdonough how he dared act thus. He replied, " The man is an American sea- 
man, and I have only done my duty." The captain swaggered, and fumed, and 
swore that he " would bring his ship alongside, and send him and his craft to the 
bottom." " That you can do," was the gallant answer to this brutal threat, " but 
while she swims that man you will not have." After much more fuming and 
swearing, the British officer said to him, " Supposing / had been in that boat, Avould 
you have dared to commit such an act ? " "I should have made the attempt, sir, at 
all hazards," was the cool reply. " What, sir," in great rage, asked the captain, " if 
T were to impress men from that brig, would you interfere ? " " You have only to 
try it, sir," was the pithy answer. It is needless to say that such undaunted courage 
prevented any further attempts on the brig. 

From the close of the Tripolitan war until the war of 1812, although INIacdonough 
was actively employed, no opportunity offered itself in which his gallantry was 
called into exercise ; but, in 1814, when " the flower of Wellington's army and 
the cream of Nelson's marines " were collected on the borders of the lakes, our gal- 
lant sailor was ordered to Champlain to superintend the construction of a fleet to 
resist the attempt of the British to gain entire mastery over the inland waters of our 
country. Nobly did he respond to the call of patriotism in one of the most brilliant 
naval contests of the whole war, in which he won one of the most decisive victories 
on record. With a greatly inferior force in ships, in metal, and in men, he utterly 
annihilated the English squadron, and took every sail, save one or two small gun- 
boats, which escaped only because the sinking condition of many of his ships 
required the assistance of every hand in the fleet. 

For this splendid affair. Congress voted him honors and a thousand acres of val- 
uable land. The cities of New York and Albany also voted him land, and Mac- 
donough was advanced to the honors and emoluments of tlie rank of post captain. 
His health had been gradvially failing him for some years, and on the 10th of No- 
vember, 1825, he died of consumption, in Middletown, Connecticut, where he had 
resided since the war. 




NOAH WEBSTER, LL. D. 



NOAH WEBSTER was bom in West Hartford, in the State of Connecticut, 
on the IGth of October, 1758. When fourteen years of age, he commenced 
the study of the classics, under the instruction of the Rev. Nathan Perkins, D. D. ; 
and in 1774 was admitted a member of the Freshman class in Yale College, and 
graduated with reputation in 1778. 

In 1781, he was admitted to the practice of the law, a profession which he had 
studied in the intervals of his regular employment. While engaged in his studies, 
he noted down every word whose meaning he did not distinctly understand, for the 
purpose of further examination. The number of words thus noted, of which he 
could find no definitions at all, or only very imperfect ones, deeply impressed upon 
his mind the deficiencies of the best dictionaries then in use. 

In 1783, he removed to Hartford, where he published the " First Part of a Gram- 
matical Institute of the English Language." The second and third parts were pub- 
lished in the years immediately following. These books, comprising a Spelling 
Book, an English Grammar, and a compilation for reading, were the first books of 
the kind published in the United States. In the winter of 1784-5, he published his 
" Sketches of American Policy." 

In 1789, ]VIr. Webster married a daughter of William Greenleaf, Esq., of Boston, 



134 NOAH WEBSTER, LL. D 

a lady of a highly-cultivated intellect, and of great elegance and grace of manners. 
His friend Trumbull speaks of this event in one of his letters to Wolcott, who was 
then at New York, in his characteristic vein of humor. " Webster has returned, 
and brought with him a very pretty wife. I wish him success ; but I doubt, in the 
present decay of business in our profession, whether his profits will enable him to 
keep up the style he sets out with. 1 fear he will breakfast upon Institutes, dine 
upon Dissertations, and go to bed supperless." 

In 1793, he removed to New York, and there established a daily paper, called the 
Minerva, with which he connected a semi-weekly paper, called the Herald, names 
which were afterwards changed to those of the Commercial Advertiser, and the 
New York Spectator. 

In 1795, he published, in vindication of Mr. Jay's ti'eaty with Great Britain, to 
which there was violent opposition, a series of papers, under the signature of Curtius. 

In 1799, he published, in two volumes octavo, his " History of Pestilential Dis- 
eases." In 1802, he published his celebrated treatise on the " Rights of Neutrals ; " 
and the same year, historical notices of " Banking Institutions and Insurance Of- 
fices." In 1798, Mr. Webster removed to New Haven. 

In the preface to his " Compendious Dictionary," published in 1806, he announced 
to the world that he had entered upon the great labor of his life, that of compiling a 
new and complete dictionary of the English language. 

Mr. Webster removed, in 1812, to Amherst. Here he entered with his character- 
istic ardor into the literary and social interests of the place ; and represented the 
town at different times in the General Court of Massachusetts. 

In 1822, Mr. Webster returned to New Haven. In 1823, he received the degree 
of LL. D. from Yale College. In June, 1824, he sailed for Europe, with a view to 
perfect his work, by consulting literary men abroad, and by examining standard au- 
thors, to which he could not have access in this country. He spent two months at 
Paris in consulting rare works in the Bibliotheque du Roi, and then went to Eng- 
land, where he remained till May, 1825. He spent several months at the University 
of Cambridge, w^here he had free access to the public libraries. 

An edition was published in 1828. This contained twelve thousand words, and 
between thirty and forty thousand definitions, not found in any preceding dictiona- 
ry. An edition was soon after published in England. In 1841, another edition was 
published in this country, containing, with those in the addenda, about eighteen 
thousand additional words. 

Besides his principal productions, above mentioned, there are numerous others to 
be included in a complete list of his writings. Dr. Webster loved truth in all its 
manifestations, whether in science or art, whether in politics and history or in mor- 
als and religion. Equally remarkable was his love of virtue. In his last days, he 
enjoyed the hopes of the gospel. Death took him not by surprise. When, after a 
short illness, the announcement of his approaching dissolution was made to him, 
" I am ready," was his simple and sublime reply. " I know in whom I have believed ; 
I have no doubts, no fears." He died on the 28th of May, 1843, in the eighty-fifth 
year of his age. 

Note. — The above sketch has been compiled from the Memoir of Mr. Webster prefixed to his Dic- 
tioaary. 




ALBERT GALLATIN. 



ALBERT GALLATIN was born at Geneva, January 29, 1761. He was 
descended, both on the paternal and maternal side, from some of the oldest 
and most distinguished families of Geneva and Switzerland. In 1779, he gradu- 
ated at the university at Geneva, and the following year came to the United States, 
having declined a commission in the army of one of the German sovereigns, being 
then only nineteen years of age. Such was his love for a republican form of 
institution, that he offered his services to our government as soon as he arrived, and 
was immediately appointed to the command of a fort in Machias, Me., then a part 
of Massachusetts. In 1782, he was appointed French tutor in the university at 
Cambridge, but left in 1784, and removed to Virginia. Having received from Eu- 
rope his patrimony, he purchased a plantation in that state, but from some cause 
did not settle upon it ; and in 1786, he once more changed his location, and planted 
himself on the banks of the Monongahela, in Pennsylvania. 

Mr. Gallatin was soon brought into public life, having been elected in 1789 a 
member of the convention to amend the constitution of the State, and in the two 
succeeding years a member of the legislature. In the measures suggested by him 
for the resuscitation of the credit of Pennsylvania, he gave an earnest of those finan- 
cial abilities which afterwards rendered him so eminent in the administration of the 



136 ALBERT GALLATIN 

national treasury. In 1793, he was married to Miss Hannah, daughter of James 
Nicholson, Esq., with whom he lived, until within a few months of his own death, in 
the enjoyment of great domestic peace and happiness. The same year he was 
elected a Senator of the United States. His eligibility having been assailed on 
the ground that, though an American anterior to the adoption of the Constitution, 
and therefore eligible to the Presidency, nine years had not elapsed since his formal 
naturalization in Virginia, his seat was vacated by a strictly party vote. Immedi- 
ately on the decision of the Senate being promulgated, and without his knowledge, 
Mr. Gallatin was elected a member to the House of Representatives from a district 
of Pennsylvania, where he did not reside, bat which continued to him its confidence 
(luring his whole congressional career. 

In 1801, Mr. Jefferson called Mr. Gallatin to a seat in his cabinet, and he contin- 
ued at the head of the treasury department during the whole of Mr. .Jefferson's 
administration. His management of the fiscal affairs of the nation at once estab- 
lislu'd his reputalion as a statesman, and won the confidence of the citizens of the 
United States. In 1813, he went to St. Petersburg, as one of the Envoys Extraor- 
dinary to negotiate with Great Britain under the mediation of Russia ; and in 1814, 
at Ghent, in connection with John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Henry Clay, 
and Jonathan Russell, he signed the treaty of peace. 

In 1815, Mr. Gallatin, with Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay, went to London, where 
they concluded the commercial convention with Great Britain. Li Paris he resided 
as the Minister of the United States from 1816 to 1823, daring which time he was 
also employed on extraordinary missions to the Netiierlands and Great Britain. In 
his last mission to London, in 1827—28, he obtained full indemnification for the 
injuries sustained by our southern fellow-citizens in the violation of the treaty of 
Cihent, besides concluding three other conventions of national importance. Besides 
these honors, Mr. Gallatin declined the office of Secretary of State, tendered to him 
by Mr. Madison, and that of Secretary of the Navy, proffered him by ]\Ir. Monroe. 
In 1824, he also declined the nomination to the office of vice president of the 
United States, offered by the democratic party. 

In 1831, he was an efficient member of the Free Trade Convention, and wrote 
the memorial to Congress, which embodies the views that are now the recognized 
principle'..; of the democratic party. As President of the National Bank, which 
office he li(>ld from 1831 till he was succeeded in it by his son, Mr. James 
Gallatin, in 1839, he gave to the other institutions of the city an illustration, in prac- 
tice, of the correct principles of banking. He was among the earliest advocates 
of an enlarged system of instruction, and aided largely in the establishment of the 
New York University. He was, at the time of his death. President of the New 
York Historical Society, and of the American Ethnological Society, an institution 
which mainly owes its origin to him. Besides Mr. Gallatin's numerous writings 
on currency and other subjects coimected with finance, and his official papers? 
which constitute no unimportant part of our national archives, he has published 
some elaborate essays on the Indian language ; and his last intellectual efforts 
were divided between his investigations of the language and civilization of the 
Southern and Western tribes of this continent, and his essays against war, addressed 
to tne interest as well as the moral obligations of nations. 

pTf* 'lied at Astoria, Long Island, on the 12th of August, 1849. 




i \\ 



PHILIP SYNG PHYSIC, M. D. 



I 



rj^HE department of medicine abounds with gi'eat and heroic names. The deck 
Jl of a frigate, in a desperate naval engagement, or the most ensanguined field 
of battle, offers no wider range for the display of all those elements which constitute 
real greatness, than the sick chamber, or the amputating room of a hospital. The 
surest mark of genius is self-command — the power, in an emergency, as on ordi- 
nary occasions, to bring into calm and efficient action all the mental and physical 
energies of one's nature. To none is the occasion oftener presented for the display 
of this gift than to the surgeon and physician. 

If this be a true definition of greatness, the subject of this memoir is entitled to 
be called a great man and a genius. Philip Sync. Physic was born in the city of 
Philadelphia, July 7, 1768. His early education was such as most worthy and judi 
cious parents, having at heart the best welfare of their child, could provide. Aftei 
the usual course of study in the University of Pennsylvania, he took his degree of 
bachelor of arts in May, 1785, and immediately commenced the study of medicine, 
under the tutelage of Dr. Adam Kuhn, a quite celebrated physician, and pupil of 
Linnaeus. After a most thorough course of reading, and a devotion to the means 
of obtaining a perfect knowledge of his profession rarely equalled, young Physic 
sailed for Europe, to finish, in the best medical schools in the old, what he had so 



138 PHILIP SYNG PHYSIC, M. D. 

well commenced in the new world. He was particularly fortunate in the associ- 
ations he here formed. Admitted to the " Royal College of Surgeons," in London, 
voung Physic had the rare fortune to receive the marked attentions of the celebrated 
Hunter, between whom and himself a warm friendship sprung up which lasted to 
the close of his life. While here, he was appointed house surgeon to St. George's 
Hospital, for the usual period of one year, and, on leaving it, became an inmate of 
Mr. Hunter's family. Every inducement was offered Dr. Physic to remain in Lon- 
don, but he had resolved to devote his knowledge and talents to his own country- 
men. Receiving his diploma from the college, and bidding his friend Hunter 
farewell, in the year 1791 he took his final leave of London and went to Edin- 
burgh, where, for the space of more than a year, he applied himself with the utmost 
diligence in obtaining all the medical knowledge the rare facilities of the university 
of that city afforded. Receiving his degree of M. D., he returned to his native coun- 
try, and established himself as a physician and surgeon in Philadelphia. 

Dr. Pliysic commenced his professional career under the most flattering circum- 
stances. Possessed of uncommon mental po^vers by nature, set off" with a fine and 
commanding person, and having enjoyed the most ample opportunities for qualify- 
ing himself for his duties, — opportunities which he had seduously and faithfully 
improved, — he at once rose to eminence in his profession, and entered into a wide 
and most successful practice. Kind hearted and sympathetic, he won the love and 
confidence of his patients, while, by the pure and upright course of his life, he se- 
cured the esteem and respect of his fellow-citizens. 

While serving in the Bush Hill Hospital, during the prevalence of the yellow 
fever. Dr. Physic received from the governor the appointment of alderman, and did 
much in quelling those awful riots which w^ere the result of this sad visitation. 
On the subsidence of the disease, he removed once more to the city, and devoted 
himself to the practice of his profession. In 1794, he was elected one of the sur- 
geons to the Pennsylvania Hospital, and also one of the physicians to the Philadel- 
phia Dispensary. While holding these offices, he contributed very largely to the 
materia medica, and to the surgical knowledge and practice, of those institutions. 

In 1797 — 99, the yellow fever once more ravaged that fated city, and Dr. 
Physic was found in the front rank of those noble souls who perilled health and life 
in the cause of humanity. Twice he was stricken down, and his recovery from the 
last attack was slow and doubtful. In 1800, he married Miss Elizabeth Emlin, by 
whom he had two sons and as many daughters. In 1801, he was appointed surgeon 
extraordinary to the Philadelphia Almshouse Infirmary. In 1802, he was elected a 
member of the American Philosophical Society. In 1805, he was appointed to the 
chair of surgery in the university. In 1814, he sufTered an attack of typhus fever, 
from the effects of which he never fully recovered. In 1819, he was transferred from 
the chair of surgery to that of anatomy, in the same institution. In 1821, he re- 
ceived the appointment of consulting surgeon to the Institution for the Blind, and, 
in 1822, he was elected president of the Phrenological Society of Philadelphia. In 
1829, he was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of France. In 

1836, he was made an honorary member of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical So- 
ciety of London. Thus, with his honors clustering around his head, he brought to 
its close a long, useful, and honorable career, and died on the 15th of December, 

1837, aged sixty-eight years. 




^. 



ZACHARY TAYLOR 



AJOR GENERAL TAYLOR was born in the county of Orange, in Vir- 
ginia, in the year 1790. After receiving such an education as the times 
permitted, General Taylor entered the army, with a commission of lieutenant in the 
7th infantry, under the administration of Jefferson, in 1808. He was then eighteen 
years of age. When, on the 19th of June, 1812, war was declared, Taylor, who had 
previously received a captain's commission, held command of Fort Harrison, and, 
with a handful of men, defended himself against the attack of a large body of Indians, 
with such skill and bravery, that Madison bestowed upon him the brevet of major. 

From this period until 1840, Taylor passed his life in an almost incessant warfare 
with the various savage tribes in the west, where he signalized himself by repeated 
acts of bravery, and by the exhibition of a sagacious forecast, which won for him the 
approval of the nation. Meanwhile he had passed through the grades of lieutenant 
colonel and colonel, and held at this date a brigadier general's commission. 

When it became evident to the government that a war with Mexico must 
speedily occur. General Taylor was ordered, with his army, to occupy a position on 
the American side of the Rio Grande, with instructions not to cross the river unless 
the Mexicans should make the first attack. 

10 



40 ZACIIARY TAYLOR. 

On the 25th of July, General Taylor reached the Island of St. Joseph's, and from 
I hence removed to Corjjus Christi, in August. From this place he sent out a party 
of reconnoissance, who recommended Point Isabel as a suitable place for a depot. 
Here he built Fort Brown, which lies on the Rio Grande, nearly opposite Mata- 
moras. It was now that hostilities commenced, the Mexicans attacking Fort Brown 
(leneral Taylor heard of the dangerous position of his troops and stores at Point 
Isabel, and determined to succor and relieve the place. But there was a Mexican 
army between him and Point Isabel, not less than five thousand strong, ready to 
dispute every inch of his way. With only two thousand one hundred men. General 
Taylor determined to cut his way through to Fort Brown. This he effected in one 
of the most brilliant military campaigns history has ever recorded, during which were 
fought the glorious battles of Palo Alto and La Resaca de la Palma, and in which 
fell so many brave and gallant men. 

The attack on Matamoras, the storming of Monterey, the sanguinary battle of 
Buena Vista, and the hundred skirmishes which took place in that year under 
General Taylor, form a page in history which will bear comparison with any other 
that has been written. With one third, and often less, of the force of the Mexicans, 
General Taylor met them on their own ground ; having to contend with all the difficul- 
ties of climate, distance of home, and an army composed of a majority of men who 
had never before seen a battle-field; and always conquered. His perfect coolness, 
his majestic courage, his keen sagacity, his admirable generalship, — true constitu- 
ents of a military hero, — are apparent in camp, in council, and in the field, and 
have won for him undying laurels ; while his kind and dignified demeanor ingratiat- 
v.d him with all his officers and soldiers. His name dwelt on every lip, his praise 
rung in every ear. Every where he was received with marked demonstrations of 
respect and affection. At New Orleans, the mayor, in his address to the old general, 
embodied the sentiment of the American public ; for although many were loud in 
their denunciations of the war, all agreed in according him the same meed of praise. 
" For such achievements. General, every true American heart, from one end to the 
other of the republic, is filled with gratitude and admiration. Wherever you direct 
your steps, upon any spot where the star-spangled banner triumphantly expands its 
folds to the breeze, you will find a nation's love to greet you ; you will have a whole 
nation's spontaneous applause, extolling the splendor of your deeds, which your 
modesty would in vain endeavor to weaken in your own eyes." 

From the battle of Buena Vista to the close of the war. General Taylor remained 
in a state of inactivity, and could only behold from a distance the triumphal march 
of Scott from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico, without so much as drawing his 
sword once in all these gallant exploits. 

At length a peace was conquered from Mexico, and General Taylor retired to 
his farm at Baton Rouge, full of honors as of years. 

In 1848, General Taylor w^as elected to fill the presidential chair, and was inau- 
gurated on the 4th of March following. He survived his inauguration but little 
more than a year, when he sunk under his cares and responsibilities, and yielded up 
his spirit on the 9th of July, 1850. The fatigues of the camp, the dangers and 
niirdships of many an ensanguined field, could not subdue the old chief; but the 
intrigues of a cabinet were too much for him, and he fell a prey to the cares and 
anxieties of his new and exalted condition. 




a/ 

JOSEPH STORY, LL.l) 



rilHlS distinguished jurist and excellent man was born in Marblehead, Essex 
JL county, Massachusetts. In 1798, he was graduated at Harvard College, with 
marked distinction, and studied law in the office of Judge Putnam, of Salem, 
where he established himself as a lawyer. He entered early into political life, 
and was sent to the General Court, for several years, a representative from the an- 
cient town (now city) of Salem, and presided over that body for a length of time. 
" In 1809, he was chosen a representative to Congress, to fill a vacancy in Essex 
South District. He served in this body with much distinction, but declined a 
reelection. In 1811, he was appointed by President Madison a judge of the Su- 
preme Court of the United States," For sound legal learning, for deep, discrim- 
inating sagacity, for unswerving rectitude, — those important prerequisites in a 
judge, — no one was his superior. " The wisdom of the selection was immediately 
indicated by the distinguished ability which he displayed; and each succeeding year 
added to the splendor and extent of his judicial fame. He moved with familiar 
steps over every province and department of jurisprudence. All branches of the law 
have been illustrated and enlarged by his learning, acuteness, and sagacity ; and of 
some, he has been the creator. His immortal judgments contain copious stores of 



142 JOSEPH STORY, LL.D. 

ripe and sound learning, which will be of inestimable value, in all futiire times, alike 
to the judge, the practitioner, and the student." 

In 1829, he was appointed Dane Professor of Law, in the Law School of Har- 
vard University, and removed from Salem to Cambridge, the seat of the college, 
where he resided until his death, in September, 1845. 

Both in his professorship and his office of Justice of the Supreme Court, Mr. 
Story was a most diligent student and laborious writer. His extended reputation 
drew multitudes from all parts of the union to the school, and to his untiring exer- 
tions is to be attributed the great success of the school. " As a teacher of jurispru- 
dence, he brought to the important duties of the professor's chair the most exuberant 
learning, the most unwearied patience, a native delight in the gi-eat subjects which 
he expounded, a copious and persuasive eloquence, and a contagious enthusiasm, 
which filled his pupils with love fpr the law, and for the master who taught it so 
well. All his teachings were illumined by the loftiest morality, and never failed to 
show, that whosoever aspired to the fame of a great lawyer must be also a good 
man." 

Judge Story early commenced his literary career, and, amidst the cares and duties 
of office, found time to dally occasionally with the muses, and to roam over the 
fields of polite learning. But his great labors lay in the duties of his double office 
as judge, and head of the Law School, — which were most assiduously and faith- 
fully discharged, — and in the composition and publication of many valuable works 
on questions of law and equity, not to mention addresses before various societies, 
eulogies on eminent men, and contributions to some of the best literary and scien- 
tific journals of the day. He was a man of whom it might eminently be said, he 
had no idle hours. His life was crowded with usefulness ; he did much, and did it 
well. " Whatever subject he touched," — these are his own words, in reference to a 
noble compeer who had just passed away from his side, — "was touched with a 
master's hand and spirit. He employed his eloquence to adorn his learning, and his 
learning to give solid weight to his eloquence. He was always instructive and 
interesting, and rarely without producing an instantaneous conviction. A lofty 
ambition of excellence, that stirring spirit, which breathes the breath of heaven, and 
pants for immortality, sustained his genius in its perilous course." 




WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, D. D 



THIS celebrated divine, the champion for free thought and free limbs, was born 
at Newport, Rhode Island, April 7, 1778. As a boy, he was at once beautiful, 
thoughtful, and amiable, conciliating all hearts, and winning the love of his friends 
and teachers. He was patient as a pupil, and applied himself diligently to what- 
ever task was assigned to him ; but in no way precocious or brilliant. At a very 
early age, he was imbued with religious reverence, and, while a mere child, thought 
with an unusual degree of mental vigor upon the abstruse dogmas of theology. He 
was the soul of honor, and ever ready to take the part of the oppressed among his 
playmates. Washington Allston, the poet-painter, describes him as " an open, 
brave, and generous boy." 

At the age of twelve, he was removed from the home of his childhood, and placed 
in the family of an uncle, in New London, to prepare himself for college. He was 
entered as freshman, in Harvard University, in 1794. His collegiate course was 
marked by close application to his studies, a strict observance of all the re- 
quirements of the government, and the most faultless deportment. In 1798, he 
was graduated with the highest honors of his class. 

After spending a couple of years as tutor in the family of David Meade Ran- 



141: WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, D. D. 

dolph, Esq., of Richmond, Virginia, he returned to Cambridge, with the pm-pose o^ 
pursuing his studies preparatory to entering the ministry. Ih 1801, he was made 
regent in Harvard University. The following year, having been licensed by the 
" Cambridge Ministerial Association," he commenced preaching. He soon received 
an invitation to settle over the Federal Street Society, in Boston, where he received 
ordination on the 1st of June, 1803. He retained the office of pastor of this church 
and society until his death, which occurred at Bennington, Vermont, on the 2d of 
October, 1842, while on a journey for his health. 

Dr. Channing's stature was small, and his appearance ever gave the beholder 
the most painful convictions of an infirm constitution and a very depressed 
condition of health. When he rose to speak, his voice, scarcely arising above a 
tremulous whisper, caused a strong feeling of disappointment and regret ; but, as he 
warmed with his theme, his form seemed to dilate, until you forgot his diminutive- 
ness, and his voice rose to such a clear, sonorous note, that every vibration thrilled 
you to the very soul. Few men were so eloquent as he ; but it wa,s not the elo- 
quence of the schools. The greatness of his subject, the solemnity of his mission, 
the consciousness of the immeasurable worth of the human soul, and the solemn 
and manly earnestness with which he sought to make it free in Christ; these were 
the elements of his subduing eloquence — an eloquence which enchained the souls 
of his auditors, and melted them into tenderness and humility. 

Dr. Channing was an uncompromising advocate of human freedom. He sought 
with all his might to take away the irons from the limbs of the enslaved, and to dis- 
inthrall the human mind from the fetters of party and the debasing creeds of sects. 
He was an ardent patriot, and his heart bled for every stain which fell upon the 
escutcheon of his country's glory. While he abhorred war and all the glory of it, 
and labored through his life for the abolition of slavery in our land, his indignation 
knew no bounds towards those who sought to fetter the free-born human mind. He 
had the highest reverence for the individual and independent man, and he could have 
no patience with those weaklings who were ready to sell their birthright for a mere 
mess of pottage, and no charity for the tyrants who were ready lordlily to usurp that 
glorious prerogative of every human soul. He disdained all party bounds or bands. 
When the New England church divided on what were called the Unitarian and Cal- 
vinistic doctrines, he took the liberal side, only as choosing the least of two evils, and 
labored while he lived to do away all sectarian names and badges, and to bring all 
real and sincere believers together under the broad and catholic name of Christians. 

Dr. Channing was a man of the purest life and spirit. The sins which so easily 
beset and contaminate many great and good men were shed by the immaculate 
mantle of his life without leaving a trace behind — " in him there was no guile." In 
his presence, others, who had no very great sins to reproach themselves withal, felt 
rebuked, and retired from his society with an humiliating consciousness of their own 
inferiority in all that constitutes " the pure in heart." 




COMMODORE OLIVER HAZARD PERRI 



OLIVER HAZARD PERRY, the " Hero of Lake Erie," was born in Newport.. 
Rhode Island, in August, 1785. He was entered as midshipman in the navy 
of the United States at the early age of twelve, and accompanied his squadron td 
rhe Mediterranean during the Tripoline war, where his urbanity and quick appre- 
hension of his duties secured the decided approval of his superiors. 

At the beginning of the war of 1812, young Perry was ordered to the command 
of a flotilla of gunboats in the harbor of New York, with the grade of lieutenant. 
Disgusted with this dull and uneventful service, he was, at his own request, trans- 
ferred to the lakes, and soon stationed, by Commodore Chauncey, on Lake Eric. 
Here his free and active spirit had full scope, and, as commander of a squadron 
which he had been instrumental in creating, he fought one of the most brilliani 
naval battles on record, and won for himself a renown deathless as the name of th<^ 
inland sea whose shores echoed to the booming of his victorious cannon. For this 
action Congress voted him thanks, and created him a captain in the navy. 

The enemy having been driven from the lakes. Commodore Perry was ordered to 
the command of the small naval force on the Potomac, to aid in the defence of the 



14:6 COMMODORE OLIVER HAZARD PERRY. 

capital, on wliich the British, under General Ross and Admiral Cockbiirn, were 
concentrating their forces, and which resulted in its downfall. 

In 1815, Commodore Perry was appointed to the command of the Java frigate, 
and sailed with Decatur's squadron to the Mediterranean, for the purpose of hum- 
i)ling the Dey of Algiers, who had taken the opportunity of our occupancy with the 
war to prey upon our commerce. This mission was successfully accomplished, and 
the Dey compelled to accede to such terms as our government chose to offer. 

On his return to the United States, and while his ship was lying at Newport, 
information was brought him of the distressing and perilous condition of a merchant- 
ship lying on a reef about six miles below. It was midwinter ; but immediately 
manning his boat, and cheering his men with " Come, my boys, we go to rescue the 
shipwrecked mariner," he succeeded in delivering eleven of his fellow-beings from a 
most painful death. In this act there is more of manly heroism than in a hundred 
battles bravely fought : those show the dauntless warrior — this, the brave man ! 

In 1819, Commodore Perry sailed for the West Indies, under sealed orders, to take 
the command of that station. For a long time those seas had been infested with 
bands of lawiless freebooters, who had become the terror of all navigators of those 
waters, and our government had resolved to extirpate them, cost what it might, h 
was a difficult and arduous service, and Perry was selected on account of his pe- 
culiar fitness for the duty. But he was not permitted to justify the selection. The 
yellow fever already prevailed in the fleet on his arrival, and he early fell a victim to 
its ravages. His death occun-ed on the 23d of August, 1820. In the height of his 
usefulness, and the very heyday of his existence, he was cut off", amidst the lamen- 
<ations of the whole country. He was buried with military honors, and every mark 
of respect was paid to his memory by Congress, and many of the state legislatures. 

None of our military or naval officers have received a greater share of popular 
favor than the subject of this memoir. In person he was elegant and imposing, 
with an easy address, which made him a favorite with all classes. His talents were 
of a high order, and he had cultivated them to a large degree. Forecast w^as his 
most prominent trait of character; and he rarely failed of success in his plans, so 
carefully did he calculate beforehand its chances and mischances. 

Beneath a suitable monument, erected to his memory by the legislature of Rhode 
island, his ashes repose in his native town ; and thither have flocked, and will still 
flock, crowds of admiring patriots, to do homage to his memory. 




DE WITT CLINTON. 



THE name of De Witt Clinton is forever associated with progress. His endur- 
ing monument is the great Erie Canal, a work, for its time, never excelled in this 
country, and although, in the advance of mind, it may be destined to fall more and 
more into desuetude, it will forever stand out as one of the giant creations of a 
colossal mind. 

This eminent statesman and politician was born in the state of New York, on the 
2d of March, 1769. At the close of the revolutionary war, in 1784, he entered Co- 
lumbia College as junior, and was graduated, in 1786, first scholar in his class. He 
studied law in the office of Samuel Jones, and was admitted to the bar in 1789, 
opening his office in the city of New York. Scarcely, however, had he commenced 
the practice of his profession, when he received an appointment as private secretary 
to his uncle, Governor Clinton. Thus introduced to political Life, he pursued it 
until death. At this time he held, also, the office of secretary to the regents of the 
university, and the board of fortifications of New York. 

In 1797, he was elected a member of the Assembly, from the city of New York ; 
and the next year, he was sent to the state Senate. While in this office, he signal- 
ized himself as a ready and forcible debater. 



118 DE WITT CLINTON. 

In 1802, Mr. Clinton was elected, by the legislature of New York, senator of the 
United States. He held this office during two sessions, when he resigned, having 
been elected to the mayoralty of New York city. While in the Senate, he gave his 
support to Mr. Jefferson and his party. 

Mr. Clinton continued in his office of mayor until 1815, with the exception of two 
years, and, during this time, he was repeatedly sent to the Senate of his native state, 
where he introduced a number of important laws, and developed his plans for inter- 
nal improvement. 

In 1811, he was elected lieutenant governor. While an incumbent of that office, 
he ran as candidate for President of the United States, in opposition to Mr. Mad- 
ison, who, however, triumphed over his opponent. This occurred at the time of 
high political excitement, when the virus of party hate was most deadly ; and Mr, 
Clinton shared, in common with all unsuccessful aspirants for high honors, its baleful 
effects. 

The character of Mi*. Clinton, however, was too well established in his native 
state to be easily shaken, and, in 1817, he was elected governor almost without 
opposition. He was reelected in 1820. On the adoption of the new state constitu- 
tion, he retired from office, but was again elected in 1824, and retained the office 
until his death. 

Meanwhile the great project of Mr. Clinton had been carried forward to its grand 
consummation, and the autumn of 1825 witnessed the triumphant completion of 
" The Great Erie Canal,''^ and an explosion of joy through the entire length of th 
land. 

Mr. Clinton was the patron and friend of popular education, and of all those combi- 
nations of mind which have for their object the improvement of the moral and phys- 
ical condition of his fellow-men. Agriculture, commerce, internal improvements, edu- 
cation, the arts and sciences, provisions for the insane, for the sick, for the blind, for 
the convict, — all these received a share of his attention, and found in him an advo- 
cate and a friend. His was a most versatile mind, and he seemed to be at home in 
whatever department of political or civil life he happened to be placed. He had a 
word for all occasions, and a hand for every good work. A man of such a universal 
genius must be expected to have some strong points of character, and it is not sur- 
prising that he had a few vigorous and wakeful enemies, who w^ere ever on the 
watch for his faults, and ready to trumpet them forth to the ^vorld ; but he was a 
man of many virtues, and rejoiced in a mighty army of friends, who knew how to 
appreciate his worth while living, and to do justice to his memory now that he is 
no longer in our midst. 

" Such was the individual," writes the venerable President Nott, " who, during a 
life so short, so changeful, and yet, withal, so fortunate, was able not only to fix 
some impress of his mind on most of the institutions under which we live, but also 
to grave the memorial of his being on the bosom of the earth on which we tread, 
and in lines, too, so bold and so indelible that they may, and probably will, continue 
legible to successive generations." 

On the 11th of February, 1828, while conversing with his family in his study, he 
expired instantly, of a disease of the heart. 




JOHN CHARLES FREMONT. 



AMONGST the explorers of the new world, Colonel Fremont has no superior. 
For all those traits essential to a successful pioneer, — courage, genius, forti- 
tude, perseverance, and indomitable heroism, — we may look far before we find his 
equal. Born, bred, and educated in South Carolina, we find him, at the age of seven- 
teen, teaching mathematics, that he might support his widowed mother and her young- 
er childreih Shortly after, at the recommendation of Mr. Poinsett, then secretary of 
the navy, he was joined to the expedition under direction of Nicollet, with whom he 
explored the way to the summit of the Rocky Mountains. 

On his return to Washington, he offered his services to the government, proposing 
to penetrate the Rocky Mountains by a new route. His offer was accepted, and his 
plan approved ; and in 1842, with a mere handful of men, he explored the South 
Pass, one of the great highways to California and Oregon, examining with great 
skill its astronomical, geological, geographical, botanical, and hygeian manifestations. 
His published report of this expedition was read with vivid interest the world over, 
and established the character of Fremont as a man of thorough scientific research 
and bold adventure. 

But Colonel Fremont was far from being satisfied. A vast tract of wilderness, 
over which no white man's foot had ever roamed, lay between his recent tracks and 



150 JOHN CHARLES FREMONT 

the explorations of Colonel Wilkes, about the tide waters of the Columbia. So, the 
following year, he set himself to the exploration of this vast tract. " He approached 
the mountains by a new line, scaled their summits south of the South Pass, deflect- 
ed to the Great Salt Lake, and pushed examinations right and left along his entire 
course. He joined his survey to that of Colonel Wilkes, and his orders were 
fulfilled. He had opened one route to the Columbia, and he wished to find an- 
other." Turning his face once more to the vast chain of mountains with whose 
grand features he was now becoming familiar, with stinted supplies, and a deficient 
number of men and mules, he began, at the very opening of winter, " that wonderful 
expedition, filled with romance, achievement, daring, and suffering, in which he was 
lost from the world nine months, traversing three thousand five hundred miles, in 
sight of eternal snows, in which he explored and revealed the grand features of Alta 
California, its great basin, the Sierra Nevada, the valleys of San Joaquin and Sacra- 
mento, explored the fabulous Buenaventura, revealed the real El Dorado, and estab- 
lished the geography of the \vestern part of our continent." 

In 1844 he was again at the capital, planning another expedition, even while he 
was preparing the report of the last ; and the following year he again set out for the 
Pacific, by a new route. This expedition involved him in the war with Mexico, and 
owing to misunderstanding of the orders of his superiors, he was arrested for disobe- 
dience and contumely, and sent back to Washington, tried by a court martial, and 
stripped of his commission. The president offered to reinstate him. " I ask jus- 
tice, not mercy," was his characteristic reply, and he spurned a sword he could not 
wear but with dishonor. 

It needed but one more line to complete the surveys he had so successfully 
carried on ; and although stripped of the patronage of govermnent, he determined to 
finish his work. Mustering his band of hardy mountaineers, who gloried in him as 
their leader, he commenced his march once more, through a more than Siberian 
country. The terrors of that campaign can scarcely be imagined. He lost all his 
men, horses, mules, provisions, and with barely the breath of life in him, he succeed- 
ed in reaching a settlement, where he recruited his exhausted energies, enlisted new 
men, procured a supply of mules and provisions, and, nothing disheartened, started 
forward once more on his glorious but perilous march ; penetrated the country of the 
fierce and remorseless Apaches ; met, awed, or defeated savage tribes ; and in a hun- 
dred days from Santa Fe, he stood on the glittering banks of the Sacramento. 

Here he was among his friends once more, and they speedily reversed the decision 
of the court martial, and made him " the first senator from the Golden State." It 
was a tribute due to his heroism and success. 

The name of Fremont " is identified forever with some of the proudest and most 
grateful passages in American history. His twenty thousand miles of wilderness 
explorations, in the midst of the inclemencies of nature, and the ferocities of jealous 
and merciless tribes : his powers of endurance in a slender form ; his intrepid coolness 
in the most appalling dangers ; his magnetic sway over enlightened and savage 
men ; his vast contributions to science ; his controlling energy in the extension of 
our empire ; his lofty and unsullied ambition ; his magnanimity, humanity, genius, 
sufferings, and heroism ; make all lovers of progress, learning, and virtue rejoice that 
Fremont's services have been rewarded by high civic honors, exhaustless wealth, and 
the admiration and gratitude of mankind." 




ROBERT BAIRD, D. D. 



REV. ROBERT BAIRD, one of thirteen children of a sturdy farmer of that 
name, was born near Brownsville, Fayette county, Pennsylvania, on the 6th 
of October, 1798. His childhood passed, like that of all farmers' boys, in tending 
cattle, raking hay, chopping wood, " riding the horse to plough," doing the chores 
generally, and going to school a few weeks in winter. At fifteen he was sent to a 
Latin school at Uniontown, whence, after the usual amount of homesickness and 
study, he went, in the summer of 1816, to Washington College, whose Sophomore 
class he joined during its last term, and graduated with a fair reputation as a 
scholar. While in college he took charge of a class of colored children in, a Sunday 
school, where the teacher. was first truly taught the rudiments of Christianity, and 
which resulted in his joining the church in the latter part of his junior year. 

In 1819, he entered the Theological School at Princeton, having supported him- 
self after he left college by teaching. On leaving the school he once more resorted 
to his favorite occupation of teaching, and took charge of an academy in Princeton, 
which situation he held for nearly six years, when he overcame his great diffidence, 
which had hitherto prevented his preaching, and commenced in earnest his profes- 
sional career — a career as honorable to himself as it has been useful to mankind. 



152 ROBERT B AIR D D. D 

In 1827, Mr. Baird became an agent of the American Bible Society, and after a 
successful commencement of his mission in the United States, he was appointed as 
their agent to Caraccas, in South America, but never sailed on his mission ; and the 
following year accepted the appointment of General Agent of the New Jersey Mis- 
sionary Society. In the spring of 1829, lie was chosen the General Agent of the 
American Sabbath School Union, and became a resident of the city of Philadelphia. 
In the fulfilment of his duties, he travelled all over the country, from Maine to Ore- 
gon, and from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. 

Dr. Baird had long felt a deep interest in the religious condition of France, and at 
his suggestion, a society had been formed, in 1834, called the " French Associa- 
tion." As the agent of this society he sailed for Havre, and remained in Europe 
three years. " The winter months he «pent in Paris, promoting the objects of the 
association ; writing and conducting an English service on the Sabbath. The first 
summer was spent in Switzerland, and during the first year a ' History of Temper- 
ance Societies' was written, which has been published in the French, Swedish, 
Dutch, German, Grecian, Danish, Finnish, and Russian languages, and scattered 
broadcast over Europe. 

" In the first tour made by Dr. B. in behalf of the temperance cause, he visited 
London, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Leipsic Berlin, Sweden, Frankfort 
on the Maine, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Brussels. In the winter of 1837-38, he 
made his northern tour through Europe, visiting Moscow, St. Petersburg, Berlin, 
Poland, Austria, and Germany. In the spring, he returned to America, the objects 
of the ' Association ' having been accomplished. In the mean time, the ' Foreign 
Evangelical Society' had been formed, and in August, 1839, Dr. Baird returned to 
Europe as its agent. In the winter of 1839-40, he was severely sick, and endured a 
long confinement. The summer of 1840 was spent in another tour to the north of 
Europe. At this time, he lectured throughout Sweden, speaking two or three times 
each day in behalf of temperance." 

In 1841 and 1842, he travelled extensively in this country, trying to rouse up the 
people on the subject of evangelizing Europe, during which he wrote and published 
his book on " Religion in America," which has been published in the English, 
French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Italian, Danish, Modern Greek, and Armenian 
languages. 

In 1846, Dr. Baird attended the World's Temperance Convention at Stockholm, 
as also the "Evangelical Alliance," which met at London. Thus he has crossed 
the ocean ten times, and spent eight years abroad in the service of the " Foreign 
Evangelical Society," and other religious institutions, travelling through almost the 
entire extent of Europe, besides visiting nearly every large town and humble hamlet 
of our own country. 

For five years Dr. Baird has labored among his own people, writing, lecturing, and 
editing the quarterly paper which is the organ of the society. He is a man of man- 
ners most bland, and address most winning, and seems to have been provided by 
Providence for the special work to which the race have called him, and to which he 
has devoted the ripest years of his life, and the freshest vigor of his expansive and 
all-embracingf benevolence. 




GENERAL ERANKLIN TIERCE 



FRANKLIN PIERCE was born in Hillsboro', in the State of New Hampshire, 
on the 23d of November, 1804. His childhood passed under the shades of the 
old trees of his rural mountain home, where he is represented as a fair, bright, blue- 
eyed, curly-headed urchin, whom the neighborhood petted, and all his teachers loved. 
Having passed a preparatory course at a neighboring academy, young Pierce en- 
tered Bowdoin College at the early age of sixteen, in the year 1820. Having 
chosen the law as a profession, he became a student in the office of Judge Wood- 
bury, of Portsmouth. The last two years of Mr. Pierce's preparatory studies were 
spent at the law school of Northampton, in Massachusetts, and in the office of 
Judge Parker, at Amherst. In 1827, being admitted to the bar, he began the prac- 
tice of his profession at Ilillsboro'. Success did not at first wait on his efforts, but 
in a little while he rose, and by degrees has attained the highest rank as a lawyer 
and advocate. He also entered early in life into politics, and in the year 1 829, at 
the age of twenty-five years, he was elected to his first political public honor, as rep- 
resentative from his native town to the legislature of the state. He served in that 
body four years, in the two latter of which he was elected speaker by a vote of one 
hundred and fifty-five, against fifty-eight for other candidates. This office he filled 
to universal satisfaction, for " he was blessed," says his biographer, Hawthorne, 



154 GENERAL FRANKLIN PIERCE. 

" with all the natural gifts that adapted him for the post ; courtesy, firmness, quick- 
ness and accuracy of judgment, and a clearness of mental perception that brought 
its own regularity into the scene of confused and entangled debate ; and to these 
qualities he added whatever was to be attained by laborious study of parliamentary 
rules." 

In 1833, Pierce was elected to Congress, and in 1837, he was chosen a member 
of the United States Senate, he having barely attained the age necessary to a seat 
in that body. Soon after his election to the lower branch of the United States Legis- 
lature, in 1834, he married Miss Jane Means, the daughter of Rev. Dr. Appleton, a 
former president of Bowdoin College, and on his election to the Senate he removed 
from Hillsboro' to Concord, the capital of the state. He served through one period 
of four years, and was reelected in 1841. The following year he resigned his seat, 
and returned to the practice of his profession at the bar. Of his political career 
while a member of this august body, it is not our intention to speak. As a public 
debater he took a high stand, and showed himself diligent and capable in the busi- 
ness of legislation, while his gentlemanly deportment won for him the respect of 
political opponents, as well as friends. 

He now devoted himself to the practice of the law, and soon gave evidence of 
the high stand he was destined to occupy at the bar. A contemporary gives us the 
clew to his success. " His vigilance and perseverance, omitting nothing in the prep- 
aration and introduction of testimony, even to the minutest details, which can be 
useful to his clients ; his watchful attention, seizing on every weak point in the oppo- 
site case ; his quickness and readiness ; his sound and excellent judgment ; his keen 
insight into character and motives ; his almost intuitive knowledge of men ; his in- 
genious and powerful cross examinations ; his adroitness in turning aside trouble- 
some testimony, and availing himself of every favorable point; his quick sense of 
the ridiculous ; his pathetic appeals to the feelings ; his sustained eloquence, and re- 
markably energetic declamation, — all mark him for a ' leader.' " 

In 1846, President Polk offered him the office of Attorney General, an honor 
which he, however, declined. On the breaking out of the Mexican war, Mr. Pierce 
was commissioned as brigadier general, and took his departure for the seat of war 
on the 27th of May, 1847, ^vhere, after seeing a good deal of hard service, and mak- 
ing one of a band of heroes in several hard battles where victory always rested on 
the American arms, he returned to his home, where he was received with much dis- 
tinction and many honors. At the present time of writing, he is the regularly-nomi- 
nated candidate of the democratic party for President of the United States. 

As a member of society, Franklin Pierce is a universal favorite, and by his good- 
natured and unaffected urbanity ingratiates every one whose good fortune it is to 
make his acquaintance. As a public speaker he is remarkably successful. A polit- 
ical opponent thus speaks of him : " He is not only remarkably fluent in his elocu- 
tion, but remarkably correct. He seldom miscalls or repeats a word. His style is 
not overloaded with ornament, and yet he draws liberally upon the treasury of 
rhetoric. His figures are often beautiful and striking, never incongruous. He is al- 
ways listened to with respectful attention, if he does not always command con- 
viction." 

P. S. — Since writing the above, General Pierce has been elected, by an almost 
unprecedented majority, to the office of President of the United States. 




TECUMSEH. 



rr>HE aboriginal race of our country has afforded some of the finest specimens of 
JL mental activity that can be found in man's history. Brutal and degraded ar^ 
the mass may be, from want of a generally diffused education, like all other races, 
our Indians have their great men — great, not only in comparison with their own, 
but in comparison with all the great men of earth. Civilization has produced few 
minds that exceed the mind of the " great leader of the Shawanees " in native 
strength, shrewdness, and dignity, and no one better deserves a place in the history 
of our great men. 

Tecumseh, a brigadier general in the British army, was born near the year 1770. 
From childhood, he was distinguished for his bravery and intrigue. With real sav- 
age abhorrence of the whites, whom ho hated as the invaders of the ashes of his 
sires, and the peace of his wigwam and hunting grounds, he spared no white man 
who came ^\ ithin the reach of his rifle or tomahawk. For years he cherished, and 
at length matured, a plan for the utter expulsion of the whites from the territory of 
his own and the neighboring tribes. In his negotiations with the chiefs of the vari- 
ous tribes from the northern extremes of the lakes to the confluence of the Missis- 
sippi with the gulf, he exhibited a sagacity and shrewdness, a knowledge of human 



156 TECUMSEH. 

nature, and a tireless perseverance, worthy the great diplomatists of the world; and 
his success was equal to his efl'orts. 

He appears to no less advantage as a negotiator w^ith the whites. Governor Har- 
rison was often pvit to fault with the shrewdness of his reasoning, and could never 
succeed in bringing the sturdy warrior to terms, save at the muzzle of his cannon. 
At the close of a fruitless negotiation at the head-quarters of Harrison, he was told 
that the matter in hand would be referred to the President. " Well," was his char- 
acteristic reply, " as the great chief is to determine this matter, I hope the Great 
Spirit will put sense enough into his head to comply with the demands of my tribe." 
He said that it would be with great reluctance that he should make war on the 
whites, but, such was his sense of tlje wrongs done to his brethren, that unless his 
demands were complied with, he would fight it out, and he " would give no rest to 
his feet until lie had united all the red men in a like determination^ 

In a civilized man, expostulating with the oppressor, who had no other claim than 
the power of might to iiis lands, and who threatened to drive him and his brethren, 
with their wives and their little ones, from the familiar and pleasant lands w^here 
their ancestors, time out of mind, had lived and died, and which was endeared by 
every traditionary event and domestic scene for a thousand years, — in a Christian- 
ized hero^ this would be considered the height of the morally sublime, an outburst 
of patriotism worthy all praise. How can it be any less so in the savage chief? 
Nay, how is the dignity and patriotism of his revenge enhanced from the very fact 
of his barbarism ! 

On another occasion, when Tecumseh had closed his speech, and was about to be 
seated, he discovered that no chair had been provided for him. The defect was 
soon supplied, and the officer who presented the chair observed, " General, your 
father requests you to take a chair." " My father I " exclaimed the indignant chief, 
assuming his most majestic attitude, " the sun is my father, and the earth is my 
mother — I ivill repose upon her boso?n;'' and immediately threw himself, with inimi- 
table grace, upon the ground, after the fashion of the Indians. 

At length, the negotiations terminated, and appeal was had to arms. The battle 
of Tippecanoe followed, and then succeeded those sanguinary fights which ended 
in the battle of the Thames, where, after fighting like a lion at bay, with a fury 
which he alone could assume, against the most fearful odds, and heaping a barrier 
of human bodies all around him, a shot through the head laid him low with his 
foes who had fallen by his hand. Thus was terminated, in the forty-fourth year of 
his age, the life of as brave a warrior as ever fought for his fatherland. 




WILLIAM HENUY HARRISON 



TILLIAM HENRY HARRISON was born in Charles City county, Vir- 
ginia, on the 9th of February, 1773. He was educated at Hamden Sydney 
College, and immediately prepared himself for the practice of medicine. At this 
time, the hostilities of the Indians, on our norlh-we.-leru frontier, excited the attention 
of our young physician, and, having received from President Wasliington an ensign's 
commission, he joined the north-western army at the early age of nineteen. In 
1792, he was promoted to a lieutenancy, and was in several actions under Wayne, 
who spoke in the highest terms of his bravery and skill. For his courage and cool- 
ness at the bloody battle of Miami Rapids, he was promoted to the rank of captain, 
and immediately placed in command of Fort Washington. In 1797, resigning his 
commission in the army, he was appointed secretary of the North-west Territory 
At the age of twenty-six, in 1799, he was elected a delegate to Congress from this 
territory, where he rendered very valuable service to his constituents, and did him- 
self great credit. 

On the erection of Indiana into a territorial government, he was appointed its 
first governor, and he held this office, by reappointment, till 1813. In addition to 
the duties in the civil and military government of the territory, he was commissioner 



158 WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON. 

and superintendent of Indian affairs; and, in the course of his administration, he 
concluded thirteen important treaties with the different tribes. On the 7th of No- 
vember, ISll, he gained over the Indians the celebrated battle of Tippecanoe, the 
news of which was received throughout the country with a burst of enthiTsiasm. 
During the last war with Great Britian, he was made commander of the north-west- 
ern army of the United States, and he bore a conspicuous part in the leading events 
in the campaign of 1812-13, the defence of Fort Meigs, and the victory of the 
Thames. In 1814, he was appointed, in conjunction with his companions in arms, 
Governor Shelby and General Cass, to treat with the Indians in the north-west, at 
Greenville ; and, in the following year, he was placed at the head of a commission 
to treat with various other important tribes. 

" In 1816, General Plarrison was elected a member of Congress from Ohio ; and, 
in 1828, he was sent minister plenipotentiary to the republic of Colombia. On his 
return, he took up his residence at North Bend, on the Ohio, sixteen miles below 
Cincinnati, where he lived upon his farm, in comparative retirement, till he was 
called by the people of the United States to preside over the country as its chief 
magistrate," 

Perhaps no man, since Washington, has received such an enthusiastic and spon- 
taneous welcome throughout the Union as the " Hero of Tippecanoe," and certainly 
no president has gone into office with so little opposition. The whig party, who 
nominated him to the office of president, expected much from his administration of 
the government, and the day of his inauguration was a jubilee. Alas ! how short- 
sighted is man I All the fond hopes of that proud hour were scattered speedily, like 
frost-bitten leaves before the autumnal blast. In one short month, the country 
resounded to deep and heartfelt lamentations, and all sections of the land bore 
signs of grief. The " Hero of Tippecanoe," the idol of the millions, — he in whom 
his party had trusted as the savior of their principles, — yielded the seals of his office 
to the Conqueror of all conquerors, and departed for a wider sphere of action, and a 
nobler field of enterprise. 

President Harrison died at Washington city, on the 4th of April, 1841, in the 
sixty-ninth year of his age. 

His obsequies were of the most imposing character, and were performed by sin- 
cere mourners throughout the length and breadth of the land. 

President Harrison was an honest man, a brave general, a shrewd and calm di- 
plomatist, a kind neighbor and friend, and a firm and consistent lover of his coun- 
try. In the language of the official notice of his death by the members of his 
cabinet, " his death was calm and resigned, as his life had been patriotic, useful, 
and distinguished ; and the last utterance of his lips expressed a fervent desire 
for the perpetuity of the constitution, and the preservation of its true principles. In 
death, as in life, the happiness of his country was uppermost in his thoughts." 




JAMES A. BAYARD. 



rrMlIS distinguished statesman was born in the city of Philadelphia, on the 2Sth 
JL of July, 1767. Very early in life, he had the misfortune to lose his parents, 
and was adopted by an uncle, who seems to have acted the part of a kind and 
faithful guardian. He fitted the child for college, and, after passing the usual time, 
he was graduated from Princeton College with the highest honors. He pursued the 
study of the law, and, on being admitted to the bar, removed to Wilmington, in the 
state of Delaware, and opened his office. No sooner had he reached the constitu- 
tional age, than he was elected to Congress, and took his seat in the House of Rep- 
resentatives in May, 1797. He took sides with the administration, and from this 
time to his death was a firm, consistent, and devoted adherent to the principles of 
the old federal party. He held his seat in the lower house of Congress until 1804, 
when the legislature of Maryland elected him to the United States Senate. 

In 1801, just at the close of Mr. Adams's administration, Mr. Bayard was ap- 
pointed minister to France, but declined it, on the ground that he had taken such a 
conspicuous part in the recent election, and had been the chief instrument in 
securing the elevation of Mr. Jefferson. His letter to Mr. Adams, declining the 
appointment, exhibits his patriotism and uprightness in a most favorable view. 



160 JAMES A. BAYARD. 

While a member of the United States Senate, he was the same efficient and 
unbending friend of his country, and won for himself the sobriquet of " the hio;h 
priest of the constitution," and "the Goliah of his party." Reelected in 1811, he 
was engaged in all the fierce struggles that preceded and accompanied the declara- 
tion of war. He opposed the declaration as hasty and unadvised ; but, when Con- 
gress had made it an act, he gave his whole strength and talents to the support of 
all measures necessary to sustain it with dignity and glory to the country. *He even 
assisted with his own hand in the works of defence erected by the citizens of Wil- 
mington, where he resided. 

Hearing of the war, the Russian czar offered 'to mediate between England and 
our own country. The offer was accepted on the part of the United States, and 
the president immediately issued commissions to Messrs. Bayard and Gallatin to 
proceed at once to St. Petersburg to negotiate with the emperor. After spending 
six months in Russia, and hearing nothing from England, they took their departure 
from St. Petersburg, over land, and reached Amsterdam, by way of Berlin, on the 
4th of March, 1814. Here they learned that England declined the mediatory offices 
of Russia, and that Adams, Clay, and Russell had been joined to their commission, 
as ministers plenipotentiary to treat with England. After much delay, England 
consented to treat, and met our commissioners at Ghent, where a treaty of peace 
was eventually concluded and signed on the 24th of December, 1814. 

In the conferences and discussions of this notable commission Mr. Bayard took 
no inconsiderable part, and fully realized the high expectations which his previous 
course had excited; and his shining qualities of mind marked him at once as a 
diplomatist and negotiator of the highest order. 

On the 7th of January, 1815, Mr. Bayard left Ghent for Paris, whither he arrived 
in a few days. Here, on the 4th of March, he was seized with a fatal but lingering 
and distressing disease. He hastened to London, where he was to meet the com- 
missioners once more, to negotiate a treaty of commerce, but his ill health did not 
permit him to take any part in their deliberations. 

While here, he received intelligence of his appointment as minister to Russia, 
and the ratification of the same by the Senate of the United States. But feeling 
that the hand of death was upon him, and desirous of closing his eyes on earth 
amidst the beloved scenes of home, he peremptorily declined the appointment. 
After many vexatious delays, the ship, which was to bear him to his native shores, 
at length set sail, and arrived in the Delaware on the 1st of August. He reached 
his home only to receive the greetings of his beloved wife and children, and witness 
their heart-breaking lamentations that his tarry with them must be so brief. His 
death occurred on the 6th of August, 1815. 




WILLIAM CULLEN BEYANT. 



O 



NE of the sweetest stars that ever cuhninated in the firmament of song — one 
that has shed a holier and more hallowing light on the darkened soul of hu- 
manity than almost any other of the muses' bright constellation, is the author of 
" Thanatopsis." He has touched the chords of the human heart, and they have vi- 
brated to the innermost of man's being, stirring up a consciousness of immortality 
within him, to which he was a stranger until that deep, solemn, and heavenly music 
was drawn from the " wonch-ous harp " of his existence, by the magic wand of the 
sweet poet. 

William Cullen Bryant was born at Cummington, Connecticut, on the 3d of 
November, 1794. It was the good fortune of the child to be blessed with a father 
who had the sagacity to detect, and the skill and tact to encourage and train, the 
manifestations of genius which exhibited themselves in young Bryant, as soon as he 
could read. At five, he wrote verses that were quite respectable ; and at ten, his 
poetry was given to the world, through the newspapers of his neighborhood. At 
thirteen, he published a political satire called the " Embargo," which got him some 
applause, and soon passed into the second edition. He was not quite sixteen when 
he entered William's College in advance. Here he made rapid proficiency, and 



1164- WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

J I 

after remainirg less than two years, he asked and obtained an honorable dismission, 
that he might pursue the study of the law. He first entered the office of Judge 
' Howe, of Worthington, and afterwards that of the Hon. William Baylies, of Bridge- 
•' I water. In 1815, he was admitted to the bar, and opened an office at Plymouth. 

I Ml*. Bryant read law faithfully, but amidst all the drudgery that falls to the lot of 
'■' a law student, and in despite the dusty, dingy, narrow, pent-up box of a lawyer's of- 
§^^'ce, with its pigeon holes, and bundles tied with red tape, and bills, and writs, and 
^^^ xecutions, and mortgages, and foreclosures, and suits, and nonsuits, he kept the 
^^^idge of fancy keen and bright, and looked out upon the green pictures of his soul, 
'^Hnd played the celestial harp with a touch as pure and light as before. When he 
vas nineteen, he published his " Thanatopsis," " Entrance to a Wood," and several 
o^'jther pieces, in the " North American Review." These publications brought the au- 
^■"'hor into notoriety at once, and he was requested to deliver the poem before the Phi 
P^Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University. 

^^^ Mr. Bryant removed to Great Barrington, Massachusetts, to practise his profes- 
"^don ; and in 1821, he married a young lady of that place. After practising law for 
'^^1 number of years, he determined to remove to New York, and devote himself to 
o^iterature. In 1825, he became editor of the " New York Review," and about the 
as minis^-j-^g ^i^^as associated with a number of literary gentlemen and artists in getting 
consented -^vhilom popular annual, the " Talisman," which was adorned, as was also 
was e^&Xeview " of which he was editor, with some of the choicest effusions of his 
1^^ ^ But the singing days of this great bird of song seem here to have ended. Pie 
■^'has left the Empyrean, and his feathers have become bedraggled in the miry high- 
C'way of politics. His sweet voice, which of yore waked the echoes of the still 
( evening and the green hills, has grown hoarse with the harsh epithets of the polit- 
ical arena ; for in 1827 he became one of the editors of the " New York Evening 
I'Post," which place he still occupies, and from which some few-and-far-between 
^ notes of the sweet olden time have come to bless the world. 
n We suppose that even poets cannot live by song alone, and that the offspring of 
I poets are liable to " all the ills which flesh is heir to ; " but it sorely grieves us to 
lose from the world the sweet influences which such a man is capable of diffusing 
all around him, and we devoutly hope that yet again this bird of song may plume 
his wings to yet higher and nobler flights in the heaven of harmony, and gladden 
^the world again with his celestial music. 




BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, LL. D. 



BENJAMIN SILLIMAN was born in North Strafford, now Trumbull, Con- 
necticut, in the year 1779. After the regular course of preparation, he entered 
Yale College very young, and graduated with honor in 1796. On leaving college, 
he taught ■ school for some time in Wethersfield ; but having fixed upon the law a? 
his profession, he left his school, and commenced reading Blackstone and Coke, and 
after a due course of study, he was admitted to the bar in New Haven, in 1802. In 
1799, he had been appointed a tutor in Yale College, and preferring that post to the 
drudgery of the law, he concluded to postpone the direct labors of his profession to 
another time. That time he has not yet seen, and to all human judgment never 
will, as he has become so involved with the instruction of the college in the various 
departments of science, that, in all probability, death alone can divorce him from his 
favorite pursuits. 

In 1802, Mr. Silliman was appointed professor of chemistry in the college. The 
knowledge he had gleaned on this subject was without any regular instruction, and 
he deemed himself hardly adequate to take so important a chair in that venerable 
institution without further preparation. Accordingly he obtained permission to 



166 BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, LL. D. 

devote as much time as he should require to prepare himself for the discharge of the 
duties of his professorship. Repairing at once to Philadelphia, he attended the 
courses of lectures on chemistry regularly delivered at the university of that city for 
two winters. During all this time he was busily engaged in performing the most 
important experiments in his own room ; and such was his zeal that he often con- 
sumed the greatest part of the night in them. Here, too, he commenced the study 
of mineralogy, in which he has so distinguished himself since by his lectures and 
publications on the subject. As connected with the science of chemistry, he also 
attended the medical lectures of the university, and received the degree of M. D. 

Returning to his Alma Mater, he entered on the discharge of the duties of the 
chair to which he had been appointed in 1804, and immediately commenced the 
delivery of a course of lectures in chemistry, on the conclusion of which he took his 
departure for Europe, whither he proceeded as agent for the college in the procura- 
tion of books and apparatus, and that he might perfect himself in the studies he 
had commenced. He was abroad a little more than a year, during which he became 
acquainted with and was instructed by the most distinguished professors of chemis- 
try, mineralogy, and geology. 

On the return of Professor Silliman, in the latter part of the year 1805, he com- 
menced his instructions in the above-mentioned sciences, and has continued to fill 
that honorable post up to the present day. Besides his regular duties as professor 
in the college, he has given long and careful courses of public lectures on the various 
sciences connected with his professorship, in most of the principal cities in the 
Union, his last course being before the Smithsonian Institution, at Washington, with- 
in the present year. 

Professor Silliman is eminently a working man. He is never idle, and while 
travelling from place to place in the course of his profession, he found time to 
study the manners and customs of the people among whom he was thrown, and to 
give his impressions to the world in sundry well-written and interesting books. In 
1810, he published "Journal of Travels in England, Holland, and Scotland; and 
Two Passages over the Atlantic in the Years 1805 and 1806 ; " and in 1820, 
" Remarks on a Short Tour made between Hartford and Quebec, in the Autumn of 
1818." He is also the author of several works on geology and the kindred sciences. 
In 1851, he commenced the publication of the " American Journal of Science," a 
work of rare merit, and which has a deserved fame on both sides of the Atlantic. 
In 1851, he visited Europe again, gathering up much useful knowledge, which we 
may well hope will be given to the world after it has passed through the laboratory 
of his discriminatinfif mind. 




WASHINGTON IRVING. 



NEW YORK city has the honor of being the birthplace of this elegant scholar 
and distinguished writer, where he was born on the 3d of April, 1782. Hr 
was the youngest son of a numerous family, and received his academic honors at 
Columbia College. It was about this period that he commenced his career as a 
public writer — a career as honorable to himself as edifying and instructive to the 
thousands of his admiring readers. His first efforts were printed in the Morning 
Chronicle, under the signature of "Jonathan Oldstyle," and were a curious prophecy 
of his forthcoming greatness. 

In common with all other young men just out of college, Mr. Irving thought that 
he must have a profession, and with the usual sagacity of such young men, chose 
that one for which he was least fitted by nature. He decided on the law ; and after 
reading the allotted time in the office of the celebrated Josiah Ogden Hoffman, duly 
installed himself as "Counsellor at Law," and opened an office in his native city. 
It is said that he was never unfortunate enough to have but one client; and his cause 
he was altogether too diffident to manage ; and so, turning over both client and 
cause to one of his brethren who had less modesty, he left the profession in disgust, 
and — what thanks does not the world owe him! — decided to pursue the mor*" 



168 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

flowery path of literature. In this choice Mr. Irving evinced a rare judgment — 
some say that he committed a happy blunder — as it was to him the only sure one 
to fame. He had evidence enough of his unfitness for the drudgery of official de- 
tails — and that he was destined to something better — during the brief period of his 
public life as Minister to Spain. The lion to the plough — the eagle to the rearing 
of chickens in a barn yard — Washington Irving to the petty duties of a public 
official ! To diplomatize and negotiate is one, and a very good, thing ; to manage 
the affairs of a state is another, and a higher, thing; but to pour into the living 
souls of millions of his race the refreshing and strengthening waters of a benev- 
olent, holy, and highly intensified intelligence, is the rare blessedness of but here 
and there one of the numerous family of the children of men. Such men are the 
benefactors of the race, and such in a remarkable degree is the subject of this 
imperfect memoir. Much has he written, but nought that he could wish unsaid ; 
for a hallowing morality clothes all his fiction, and truth his history; and the fame 
of his greatness is as pure as it is sparkling. 

The versatility of Mr. Irving's pen is wonderful, and its power to create a laugh 
"beneath the ribs of death," or wring a tear of genuine sympathy from the eye of 
cold philosophy, all have been compelled to confess. There is, too, a freshness and 
a raciness in all he writes, that smacks of nothing but his own high genius, and all- 
embracing heart. Pick up a stray leaf from any of his many books, and though it 
have no mark or signature to identify it, yet will you know it by the faithfully 
daguerreotyped lineaments of his beautiful and harmonious mind. 

But we hope and believe, that what has been is only promise of still better to 
come ; for although Mr. Irving is approaching the " sere and yellow leaf," there is 
in him nothing of "the lean and slippered pantaloon;" and we know him to be 
busily engaged in tasks of literature which we predict will throw a halo of glory 
around his setting sun, and fill the measure of his literary fame. 

Unlike some whose charter of nobility lies in their pen, Mr. Irving is the person- 
ation of his best fictions ; a true gentleman, a kind neighbor, and a consistent 
Christian. May it be long before the shadows lie heavily and darkly on " Sunny 
Side," — that " nook as quiet and sheltered as the heart of man could desire, in 
which to take refuge from the troubles and cares of the world" — and the voice that 
hath so often blessed our childhood, and cheered and strengthened our manhood, 
solacing our saddened hearts in many of life's dark passages, — yes, may it be long 
Defore that pleasant voice shall be 'ost in the silence of the dead. 




LEVI WOODBURY, 



LEVI WOODBURY was born in Francistown, New Hampshire, in January. 
L790. He received a solid education at the common schools of his native 
town, and with a little Latin, Greek, and mathematics, acquired at a neighboring 
academy, where he spent a few months, he entered Dartmouth College, in 1805, and 
graduated in 1809, with a high reputation for talents and learning. During the 
vacations of his collegiate course, Mr. Woodbury taught the common schools of 
several of the neighboring towns with eminent success. After studying law for the 
usual term of time, he w^as admitted to practice, and opened an office at Francis- 
town, in 1812. 

Mr. Woodbury applied himself very diligently to the duties of his chosen profes- 
sion, and soon had the satisfaction of knowing that he was rising in character as a 
member of the bar, and, before he had attained to middle life, to see himself rated 
as among the foremost of his profession. This was during the exciting period of 
hostilities between England and our own government, when politics ran high, and 
no man of ordinary ability could keep aloof from the agitating and all-engrossing 
questions of the day. Mr. Woodbury was early interested in and advocated with 



170 LEVI WOODBURY. 

much zeal the democratic side of these questions. Previous to 1816, tlic whigs held 
the ascendency in the state elections; but during this year, through the influence of 
that most remarkable and devoted politician, Hon. Isaac Hill, democracy rose 
triumphantly to the ascendant, which position it has held to the present time. On 
the meeting of the legislature, in 1816, Mr. Woodbury was chosen secretary to the 
Senate, and, in January following, was appointed one of the three judges of the 
Superior Court. Much fault was foUnd with this appointment, on account of the 
unusual youth of the incumbent — he being only twenty-six years of age; but the 
manliness of his acquirements, combined v.ith tlie strength of his natural gifts, showed 
that a man is not to be measured by his years. He soon acquired a high legal repu- 
tation, and his o^.inions were respected by all his brethren in the same profession. 

In 1819, Judge Woodbury removed to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and 
married Miss Clapp, of Portland. In 1823, he was elected governor of his native 
state. In 1825, he was sent from Portsmouth to the legislature, and, during the 
same session, was elected by that body a member of the Senate of the United 
States, where he took his seat at the commencement of the session of 1825-6. 

During the four years Governor Woodbury held a seat in that august body, he 
took a high and dignified stand, and coiumanded the respect of his fellow-senators. 
His duties were arduous, and were discharged with a zeal and fidelity which secured 
the approval of his constituents. During this period, also, his labors in his profes- 
sion, which were most arduous, and often delicate, were discharged with great 
satisfaction to those who engaged his services. 

In April, 1830, he was invited by President Jackson to a seat in the cabinet. He 
accepted the high honor, and entered immediately on the duties of Secretary of the 
Navy. On the rejection of Taney as Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Woodbury was 
nominated to that office, and his nomination was confirmed by the Senate, in 1834. 
He remained in this office until the close of Mr. Van Buren's administration. The 
winter previous he had been elected to the United States Senate by the legislature 
of New Hampshire, and took his seat in that body in 1841. Having served the 
period for which he was elected with credit to himself, he retired to his New 
England, where he died in 1851. 




'/'' 



HON. DANIEL DEWEY BARNAKD, LL. D. 

DANIEL DEWEY BARNARD \yas born in Berkshire county, Massachusetts. 
While he was a mere child, his father removed to Western New York, where 
he worked upon the farm until he was about twelve, when, for want of something 
better, his father placed him in the county clerk's office at Canandaigua. At fourteen 
he became deputy clerk in the office, and at that early age often had the entire charge 
of the "business of the office. 

His opportunities for education had hitherto been very meagre, and manifesting a 
decided turn of mind for study, he was sent to Lenox Academy, where he fitted for 
college, and entered as Sophomore at Williams College, from which he graduated in 
1818, honored with the delivery of the poem on that occasion. 

Without pursuing any regular course of study, Mr. Barnard took out a license as 
counsellor, and was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court. He opened his office 
at Rochester, New York, in 1824, and passed immediately into an extensive practice, 
being employed in the trial of causes both at home and in neighboring counties. 
In 1826, he was made District Attorney for the county of Munroe, and held that office 
^ until, in the fall of 1826, he was put in nomination for Congress, and in 1827 elected 

12 



172 HON. DANIEL DEWEY BARNARD, LL. D. 

by the republican party, in whose principles he was educated. His district included 
the present Munroe and Livingston counties. The nomination and election were 
unsought and unexpected by him, and his acceptance withdrew him, while yet a 
young man, and lately married, from a lucrative practice in the law. He was the 
youngest member of the twentieth Congress, although one of the most active and 
efficient. He delivered his first speech on the celebrated " D'Auterive claims," and 
which was said to be a close and logical argument against the claim. 

It was about this period that the anti-masonic excitement commenced in New 
York, and spread with wonderful rapidity, not over that state alone, but through all 
the other states of the Union. From the first, Mr. Barnard steadily resisted this strange 
and overwhelming fanaticism. No candidate opposed to this lunacy could expect 
to succeed, and he accordingly lost his election, and returned to Rochester, where he 
once more devoted himself to the practice of the law. At this time the " Morgan tri- 
als," as they were significantly denominated, were proceeding, and Mr. Barnard became 
counsel for the defence in a number of instances. The excitement and fatigue he 
underwent undermined his health, and he determined upon a voyage over sea, as the 
best means of reestablishing it ; and accordingly, in the fall of 1830, the subject of 
our memoir sailed for Europe, He visited France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, and 
England, and returned home in the summer of 1831. He was in Europe a little less 
than five months, and was a diligent traveller and observer ; and while abroad he found 
time to embody, in a series of letters, the impressions made upon hnu by the new 
scenes and the interesting events of the period. In the autumn of 1832, Mr. Bar- 
nard removed to the city of Albany, where, avoiding the more arduous duties of his 
profession, his services were rendered, as counsellor and adviser, to those who de- 
sired it. 

In 1839, Mr. Barnard once more took his seat in the House of Representatives at 
Washington, which he retained until the close of the twenty-eighth Congress, in 
March, 1845. During this long period, his services were important, and rendered with 
that aptness and fidelity which have ever marked all the labors of his life. 

" As a speaker, Mr. Barnard is clear, convincing, and argumentative. He speaks 
in a measured and deliberate tone, and occasionally throws out a lofty sentiment, 
which shows the depth and dignity of his intellect. His manner is earnest, but at 
the same time courteous and deferential to opponents. The face of Mr. Barnard is 
that of a student — pale, grave, and thoughtful. In stature, he is tall ; he is past the 
meridian of life." In 1835, the degree of doctor of laws was conferred upon him by 
Geneva College, and in 1845 the same honor was awarded him by Columbia College, 
in New York. 




^'' ; / 



HON. RUFUS CHOATE. 



As an orator and close, logical reasoner, we have few men in our country who 
rank higher than the Hon. Rufus Choate, " the great Massachusetts lawyer." 
Indeed, we cannot well compare his characteristics as a public speaker with those of 
any other man, — he is sui }reneris. His manner is now impetuous — violent, anon 
soft as a woman's ; now stirring the intellect and the passions, then touching with 
the sweetest pathos the seals of the heart's deeper wells, until they melt away, and 
suffer all their waters of tenderness to come gushing up into your eyes while you listen. 
All this is aided by a voice sometimes sweeter than any flute, and presently as 
stirring as the blast of any trumpet. When he addresses a jury or a popular assefti- 
bly, he brings to his aid the entire anatomy of his frame, lips, eyes, arms, legs — the 
very garments which he wears. 

Mr. Choate was born in Ipswich, Massachusetts, on the 1st of October, 1799. 
He entered Dartmouth College in 1815. While in college he was noted for remark- 
able assiduity, and he made a corresponding progress, graduating with much eclat. 
After leaving college, he was chosen tutor. Having decided to study law, he shortly 
after resigned his tutorship, and entered the Law School at Cambridge. He after- 



174 HON. RUFUSCHOATE. 

wards studied a year with Mr. Wirt, attorney general of the United States, and 
completed his studies in the office of Judge Cummins, of Salem, Massachusetts, 

Mr. Choate commenced the practice of his profession in the town of Danvers, in 
1824. But a considerable portion of the period between his first entry into his pro- 
fession and his final removal to Boston, in 1834, was passed in Salem. " He dis- 
tinguished himself," says the Whig Review, " as an advocate. His legal argu- 
ments, replete with knowledge ; conducted with admirable skill ; evincing uncommon 
felicity and power in the analysis and application of evidence ; blazing with the 
blended fires of imagination and sensibility ; and delivered with a rapidity and 
animation of manner which swept along the minds of his hearers on the torrent 
of his eloquence, made him one of the most successful advocates at the Essex bar." 

Mr. Choate commenced his political life in 1825, when he was chosen a member 
of the House of Representatives in the General Court of Massachusetts, In 1827, 
he was sent to the Senate, where he soon took a prominent part in the debates, and 
the energy and sagacity which he displayed gave him a wide reputation. In 1832, 
he was elected member of Congress from the Essex district. He declined a reelec- 
tion, and in 1834 removed to Boston, to devote himself to his profession. He soon 
took a position among the most eminent lawyers at the Suffolk bar ; and for seven 
years his legal services were in continual request. In 1841, on the retirement of Mr, 
Webster from the Senate, he was elected to fill his place by a large majority of the 
Massachusetts legislature — an honor which Massachusetts bestows on none but 
men of signal ability and integrity. Since Mr, Choate resigned his seat in the 
Senate, he has been exclusively devoted to his profession, 

Mr, Choate is still in the prime of life, being only fifty-three, and we may well 
hope that he will yet render valuable service to his country and to literature. 

We will close our brief sketch of this accomplished scholar, lawyer, and states- 
man, by quoting a sentence from his second speech on the tariff, exhibiting his 
tendency to playfulness, whenever 'opportunity offers, even in his gravest speeches : — 

" Take the New England climate, in summer ; you would think the world was 
coming to an end. Certain recent heresies on that subject may have had a natural 
origin there. Cold to-day ; hot to-morrow ; mercury at eighty degrees in the morn- 
ing, with wind at south-west ; and in three hours more a sea turn, wind at east, a 
thick fog from the very bottom of the ocean, and a fall of forty degrees of Fahren- 
heit ; now so dry as to kill all the beans in New Hampshire ; then floods carrying 
off the bridges of the Penobscot and Connecticut; snow in Portsmouth in July ; and 
the next day a man and a yoke of oxen killed by lightning in Rhode Island. You 
would think the world was twenty times coming to an end ! But I don't know how 
it is : we go along ; the early and the latter rain falls, each in its season ; seedtime 
and harvest do not fail ; the sixty days of hot, corn weather are pretty sure to be 
measured out to us. The Indian summer, with its bland south-west, and mitigated 
sunshine, brings all up; and on the twenty-fifth of November, or thereabouts, being 
Thursday, three millions of grateful people, in meeting houses, or around the family 
board, give thanks for a year of health, plenty, and happiness," 




MRS. ANN H. JUDSON. 



WHATEVER religious opinions he may cherish, or however destitute he may 
be of such opinions, no man can fail to be filled with admiration at such . 
exhibitions of lofty self-sacrifice and magnanimous devotion to deeds of love as 
present themselves in the lives of those women who, under a strong conviction of 
duty, taking their lives in their hand, and leaving behind them forever the comforts 
and luxuries of a Christian civilization, have gone forth to labor and die in most 
ungenial climes and barbarous lands, in order that they might bring " the heathen 
for an inheritance " to God. 

Such was the holy self-consecration of Ann Haseltine, the first wife of Rev. 
Adonlram Judson, D. D., whose missionary labors have made him notorious through- 
out the world. She was born in Bradford, Massachusetts, on the 22d of December, 
1789. Possessed of unusual personal attractions, and a buoyancy of spirits which 
nothing could long depress, up to the age of seventeen she led a gay and merry life. 
Of a social disposition, with a warm, strong heart beating within her bosom, she 
multiplied her friendships, and formed some strong attachments. At this time, she 
declares that she thought herself the happiest person on earth. " I so far surpassed 
all others in gayety and mirth," she adds, « that some of my friends were apprehen- 



176 MRS. ANN H. JUDSON. 

sive I had but a short time to continue in my career of folly, and should be suddenly 
cut off. Thus passed the last winter of my gay life." 

The spring and summer of her seventeenth year, 1806, witnessed an entire change 
in her life and feelings. She became thoughtful, and greatly anxious concerning her 
condition. Her anxiety deepened into intense distress, and decided her to consecrate 
her soul and body to a holy life. In this earnest resolve she found peace. Hers was 
no half-way character, and she entered into her new life with the same hearty zeal 
which had marked her worldly career. At once and forever, she renounced her gay 
companions and all her youthful pursuits, joined the Orthodox church, in her native 
town, in the following August, and devoted her whole being to prayer, meditation, 
reading, and active works of piety. " Such w^as my thirst for religious knowledge," 
she says, "that I frequently spent a great part of the night in reading religious 
books." " Besides the daily study of the Scripture, with Guise, Orton, and Scott 
before her," says her biogi'apher, " she perused, with deep interest, the works of 
Edwards, Hopkins, Bellamy, Doddridge," etc. She took upon herself, also, the 
gratuitous charge of some poor, young children ; believing, as she says, " that she 
ought to do as well as feel." 

On the 5th of February, 1812, in the 23d year of her age, she became the wife of 
Mr. Judson, and immediately embarked for Burmah, the scene of her future labors, 
in company with Mr. and Mrs. Newell, who were likewise entering upon the field 
of foreign missionary enterprise. They reached Calcutta in June following, and 
were immediately conducted to Serampore by the venerable Dr. Carey, that being 
his home. Here their trials commenced, which ended only with her life. After 
great persecution and distress, she reached her home in Burmah, the scene of her 
coming trials and duties. " Adieu," she exclaims, in a letter to her friends in 
America, " adieu to polished, refined. Christian society. Our lot is not cast among 
you, but among pagans, among barbarians, whose tender mercies are cruel." Here, 
with every conceivable discouragement to encounter, under the debilitating influ- 
ences of a tropical climate, and far away from the sympathies and cooperation of 
fellow-Christians, she commenced her arduous duties with the same cheerful zeal 
and untiring devotion which had ever marked her career, alike unterrified by the 
physical dangers and social difficulties which assailed her. Her health failing, she 
returned to America for a brief period, by the way of England, in the year 1822, 
and then returned to labor, and suffer, and die in the land of her adoption. In the 
autumn of 1826, this devoted and Christian missionary fell asleep in Jesus, and she 
and her infant child were committed to the repose of the bosom of their mother 
earth. 




MRS. EMILY C. JUDSON. 



THE name of " Fanny Forrester " is familiar to all the readers of our lighter lit- 
erature. The playfulness of her fancy, the chaste and sparkling purity of her 
wit, together with the high moral tone prevailing in all she writes, give her produc- 
tions a charm that beguiles many a youthful heart, and is not without its effect 
upon the frostier of her readers. Who would ever guess, while fascinated by one 
of her lively and exhilarating books, that the author was one day destined to dwell 
under the palm-trees of Burmah, and become a schoolmistress to the ignorant hea- 
then of that tropical clime — that the gay-hearted, childlike Fanny Forrester should 
be, one day, the missionary wife of an old man who had already committed her two 
predecessors to the " golden sands of Burmah " ! And yet there is, to our mind, a 
moral beauty, and even grandeur, in her more recent relations which eclipses her 
former glory, and excites our profoundest admiration for the high and unselfish mo- 
tives which prompted her to make so large a sacrifice for so doubtful a good. 

Mrs. Emily C. Judson is a native of the state of New York. Her childhood 
exhibited the unusual combination of a rare precocity with an amiable desire to 
promote the happiness of those with whom she w^as associated. Very early in life, 
she manifested an unusual tact in "telling stories," which she used to do to admiring 



178 MRS. EMILY C. JUDSON. 

groups of her companions, who were ever ready to relinquish their sports to listen to 
her childish creations. A little later in life, she used to write her stories, and would 
often sit up all night to complete them, and afterwards read them to her playfellows. 
She also strung together verses of considerable merit. She embraced religion at an 
early age, and was baptized by Rev. Mr. Dean, a missionary to China, then on a 
visit to this country. At that time, she became deeply interested in the missionary 
enterprise, and greatly desired to devote herself to the work of Christianizing hea- 
thendom. But these impressions, as also her religious fervor, gradually wore away, 
and she became fond of worldly society and enjoyments. 

Being desirous of doing something towards her own maintenance and the increase 
of the somewhat limited resources of her home, she became a teacher in a seminary 
in Utica. While here, she determined, also, to make her pen a source of profit to 
herself, at the same time it should be the channel of good things to others. At first, 
her labors met with an indifferent reception from the public, and contributed but 
meagrely to the increase of her means. In 1844, by a well-directed and happy 
letter to the editor of the New York Mirror, she secxired the good will and pati'onage 
of the fastidious and critical editor of that paper, and was thus brought before the 
reading public in the most favorable manner. 

Under the sobriquet of " Fanny Forrester," she became a constant, and exceed- 
ingly popular, contributor to that literary journal, and her letters, tales, and disqui- 
sitions were copied into almost every newspaper in the land, and delighted and 
instructed thousands upon thousands, who still, and ever will, remember her with 
gratitude and delight. A vein of thoughtful tenderness, relieved with a gushing 
playfulness that will not be restrained, runs through all her compositions, rendering 
them a very acceptable treat to the readers of light literature. 

But this pleasant career was suddenly cut short by an accidental meeting, in the 
city of Philadelphia, with Mr. Judson, whose wife she became on the 2d of June, 
1846, and sailed with him immediately after for the new field of labor into which 
she joyfully entered. 

In 1850, Mrs. Judson was called to mourn the loss of her fond and devoted hus- 
band. He died on board ship, far from home, and left his wife and children almost 
strangers in a heathen land. He, " the Christian hero," sleeps in his " unquiet sep- 
ulchre" down in the far ocean caves; and she remains to train his surviving chil- 
dren in the way of honor and a holy life. 




MAJOR GENERAL WINEIELD SCOTT. 



WIN FIELD SCOTT, the son of a farmer by the name of William Scott, was 
born near Petersburg, Virginia, on the 18th of June, 1786. He was the 
youngest of two sons, and had three sisters. His father dying when he was a 
child, his mother, with a small property, and left with five children, contrived to give 
him a good education. He chose the legal profession, and was admitted to the bar 
in 1806, at the age of twenty. When the war of 1812 broke out, he applied for and 
received a commission of captain of artillery, and accompanied General Hull in his 
inglorious campaign. 

The first battle of our young hero was fought at Queenstown Heights, under 
commission from Madison, as lieutentant colonel, with a force of some four hundred 
men, against a British force of thirteen hundred men ; and, although defeated, such 
was the desperate valor with which he held out against the overwhelming odds, that 
the victory seemed rather to hover over the American than the British flag. 

On being exchanged, Scott again repaired to the ground of his former exploits, 
where he was engaged in several lesser actions, with success, until midsummer, 
when he took Fort Erie, and fought the bloody battles of Chippewa and Lundy's 
Lane, in which he exhibited a rare and mature military knowledge, and fought with 
a bravery that insured success under the most fearful circumstances. In this last 



180 MAJOR GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT. 

action he was severely wounded, and had to be borne on a litter to Buffalo, thence 
to Williamstown, and afterwards to Geneva. After recovering sufficiently, he slowly 
journeyed towards Philadelphia, whither he repaired for further surgical aid. Con- 
gress voted him a large gold medal, incribed with the names of " Chippewa" and 
" Niagara," and bearing his likeness. The states of New York and Virginia like- 
wise bestowed a similar high compliment, by votes of thanks, and by making him 
valuable gifts. 

After the war, General Scott served his country in several capacities, both as a 
soldier and a civilian, and his name has been connected with every presidential cam- 
paign since 1828. In 1841, by the death of General Macomb, he became com- 
mander-in-chief of the army. Previous to this, he had been sent several times to 
quell the revolts of some of our most restless tribes of Indians, and was chosen by 
Jackson as the leader of the army that was to put down South Carolinian nullifica- 
tion. He was also ordered to Maine, in 1839, to adjust the difficulties between that 
state and the British government respecting our north-eastern boundary ; and his 
mission was conducted with skill and wisdom. 

The brilliant military career of General Scott in the late Mexican war not only 
reflects the highest glory on his name, as the, chief who planned and executed all 
the movements of the American army, from the bombardment of San Juan de Ulloa 
to the capture of the city of Mexico, but forms one of the most glorious military 
campaigns on record. It took the world by surprise, and established forever the 
chivalrous courage and military prowess of our citizen soldiery. When we consider 
the fearful odds he had to encounter, and take into account the fact that he fought 
the enemy on his own soil, having to contend with all the deadly influences of cli- 
mate, we feel that we can confidently assert that it has no parallel in the history of 
modern warfare. 

We have not time to follow the hero, in detail, throughout that splendid cam- 
paign. Suffice it to say, that under the walls of San Juan de Ulloa ; in the dispo- 
sition made of the city and castle after their surrender ; in the orderly line of march 
taken up from Vera Cruz to the capital ; in the heroic storming of Cerro Gordo ; the 
capture of Jalapa ; the taking of Perote ; the occupation of Puebla; the negotia- 
tions carried on while the enemy rested a while at this latter place ; the battle of 
Contreras ; the fall of San Antonia ; the bloody action of Churubusco ; the fight at 
Molino del Rey ; the bombardment and storming of the almost inaccessible Chapul- 
tepec; and the final triumphant entrance into the capital of Mexico; — in all these 
masterpieces of military execution, the head and hand of the commander-in-chief 
are seen, and place him, at once, among the great and successful military heroes of 
modern times. 

General Scott was now virtually the governor of Mexico, and he became sole 
director of public affairs. His position was novel and difficult in the exti*eme. 
Alone he performed the duties of Commander-in-chief, President of the country, and 
Secretary of the Treasury. In no respect did he fail, and in no respect did he come 
short of the highest expectations of his government. 

On the establishment of peace. General Scott returned in triumph to his home, to 
receive the congratulations of his friends, and the thanks of his countrymen. At 
the time of writing this article, he is the regularly-nominated candidate of the whig 
party for the office of President of the United States. 




LEWIS CASS. 



SOME men become famous by a few brilliant actions ; others work their way tc 
greatness by constant labor ; the first are the geniuses of the world, the last, its 
heroes. Lewis Cass belongs to the latter class. He was born in the village of 
Exeter, New Hampshire, October 9, 1782. Receiving his education at the far-famed 
academy of his native village, he followed the fortunes of his family, in 1799, to 
Ohio, then the land of promise, and the extreme west, and studied law at Marietta, 
in the office of the late Governor Meigs. He was admitted to the bar in 1802, and 
followed his profession several years in that place. In 1806, he was sent to the 
legislature of Ohio, where his unusually strong diplomatic mind began to unfold 
itself. This \vas the period of the famous Burr conspiracy, which was believed to 
have for its object the disunion of the states, and the erection, in the west, of a sep- 
arate government. The Ohio River, with its numerous islands, was the rendezvous 
of the conspirators, and their point of departure. The national arm could not reach 
them in their hiding-place, and it was at the suggestion of Mr. Cass that the states 
were empowered to act in the matter. This speedily resulted in the dispersion of 
the men, and the destruction of the mad scheme of separation. 

In 1807, he received the appointment of marshal of the state, which office he filled 



182 LEWIS CASS. 

until 1813, when he resigned it. In 1812, he was a volunteer in that famous expe- 
dition against Canada, under the direction of the imbecile Hull, in which he acted 
with the rank of Colonel. It is well known that he disapproved of all the weak and 
timorous measures adopted at head-quarters. Though not present at the capitula- 
tion, he was involved in it, and became, with the rest, a prisoner of war. 

In the spring of 1813, Colonel Cass was exchanged, and immediately promoted 
to the rank of brigadier general. Joining General Harrison at Seneca, he aided in 
the pursuit of Proctor, and shared the victory at the Moravian Towns ; and, at the 
close of the war, was charged with the military command of Michigan, over which, 
in 1813, he was called to preside in the civil capacity of governor. 

This was at a period when the whole western and north-western frontiers were 
occupied with ungovernable hordes of savage Indians, between whom and the 
United States little fraternity existed. A new mode of treatment was now to be 
adopted. The rifle had done its work, and the savage was tamed into submission. 
The policy of the states was now to make them, as far as possible, friends. This wa3 
to be effected only by the most consummate negotiation. It is not often that the 
warrior makes a good negotiator ; but, in the present emergency, Governor Cass was 
looked to as a man possessing the necessary qualifications. Nor did he disappoint 
the government. No American, perhaps, has been more extensively and success- 
fully engaged in that delicate and difficult kind of diplomacy. From 1815 to 1831, 
when he received the appointment of Secretary of War, under the administration 
of General Jackson, he was in constant treaty with the various western Indian 
tribes ; having, during that period, assisted at no less than ten councils with the red 
men of the wilderness. To say that he did not sometimes fail, would be to say 
that he was not human ; but to say that his conduct on these trying occasions was 
marked by great skill and prudence, is only to do him justice. 

In 1828, the " Historical Society of the State of Michigan " was organized, and 
Governor Cass elected its first president. In the following year, he delivered the 
first anniversary address, embracing the early history of that growing state. In 
1830, he received from Hamilton College, in New York, the degree of LL. D. 

Mr. Cass has repeatedly been called to a seat in the national councils, and has 
ranked on the democratic side of the house. It is not our purpose, nor w^ould it be 
decorous, to pass an opinion on the party-political measures of living men ; that 
judgment must be left to posterity. That his talents as a statesman and a lawyer 
are of a high order, all must allow ; and he has left, and will leave, his mark upon 
his generation, which other generations will feel and gratefully acknowledge. 




WILLIAM POTTS DEWEES, M. D. 



BORN in Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania, in 1776, a poor and orphan child, without 
any academical instruction, William P. Dewees entered upon the duties of 
the medical profession at Abington, about fourteen miles from Philadelphia, at the 
age of twenty-one, where he speedily engrossed all the valuable practice of the 
neighborhood, and soon rose to such a degi-ee of eminence as to attract the notice 
and secure the patronage of Rush, and the friendship of Weistar, Physic, and other 
eminent men in his profession. At that period, the science of obstetrics was scarcely 
known in this country. To this branch of his profession. Dr. Dewees gave the full 
strength of his great mind. Hitherto midwifery had been only an adjunct; he now 
determined to make it a separate science ; and to him belongs the honor of first 
conceiving and delivering a full course of lectures on the subject. He spared no 
pains to inform himself for his work, and thus armed, and strengthened with the 
holy consciousness of the need of such a work, he proceeded to his task, and deliv- 
ered his course to a small body of students in his own office in Philadelphia, to 
which city he had, meanwhile, removed. 

About this period. Dr. Dewees married the daughter of Dr. Rogers, " of New Eng- 
land," who in a few years suddenly fell a victim to acute disease. We may as 



18J: WILLIAM POTTS DEVVEES, M. D. 

well add here that, in 1802, he married, as his second ^vife, Miss Mary Lorrain, the 
daughter of a highly respectable merchant of Philadelphia. By this union, he be- 
came the father of five sons and three daughters. This lady, in whose connection 
he was greatly blessed, shared his prosperity and fame, and, in the days of his gath- 
ering darkness, cheered and consoled his sinking spirit to the very gate of heaven. 

In the spring of 1806, he applied for, and received from the university, the degree 
of M. D., that he might be fully prepared as a candidate for the new chair of obstet- 
rics about to be established in the university. It was not, however, until 1810, that 
an election of its occupant took place ; and then there were several candidates, hav- 
ing great claims. It fell to the lot of Dr. Thomas C. James, greatly to the disap- 
pointment of the subject of this memoir. 

In 1812, Dr. Dewees resigned his business, on account of ill health, and removed 
to Philipsburgh, where he invested his property, which he entirely lost, but regained 
his health. Again he repaired to the city, and once more entered upon a successful 
course of practice, and commenced the publication of the result of his study and 
experience. He published several volumes on the science of obstetrics, on the 
" Treatment of Children," on the " Diseases peculiar to Woman," and several kin- 
dred subjects. During this period, his exertions were almost herculean ; for, besides 
his literary labors, he was engaged in a wide and arduous practice. 

In 1825, Dr. James's health having declined, the trustees of the university elected 
Dr. Dewees assistant professor with Dr. James, and, in 1834, on the retirement of 
the latter gentleman from the chair, Dr. Dewees was unanimously elected his suc- 
cessor. Up to this period, prosperity sat at his hearthstone, and happiness rested on 
his home. But now, a change was to take place ; and the trivial circumstance of a 
sprained ankle was made the turning-point. Long confinement to his house, in 
consequence of this lameness, induced plethora, and in April, 1834, he was stricken 
with apoplexy. By the early and unremitting care of his medical friends, he was 
rescued from the grave, and, after resting from his labors, and travelling for a few 
months, he returned to the duties of his office, apparently restored to health. His 
hopes, and those of his friends, however, were destined to perish ; and, after many 
futile attempts to rally, he resigned his office in November of the following year. 
The students, on his retiring from the office, presented him w^ith a magnificent silver 
vase, with an inscription expressive of their respect and esteem. The occasion of 
the presentation of this piece of plate was afiecting in the extreme. 

Dr. Dewees sought the restoration of his health in a change of climate, and im- 
mediately embarked for Cuba. After spending the winter here, he went to Mobile, 
where he resided for several years, moderately pursuing his profession. In May, 
1840, he returned to Philadelphia, where, after many months of severe sufTering, he 
expired on the 20th of May, 1841, aged sixty-five years. 




COMMODORE STEPHEN DECATUR. 



A NOBLER or a braver man never trod the planks of a man-of-war's decks 
than Stephen Decatur ; while his cool sagacity and clear-headedness were 
fully equal to his courage. In the destruction of the frigate Philadelphia, a Tripol- 
itan prize, lying in the harbor of Tripoli, and his attack upon, and capture of, the 
Tripolitan gunboats, which were anchored under the very muzzles of the guns of 
the Turkish batteries ; in his gallant capture of the Macedonian ; in the brave chal- 
lenge he sent to the commander of the British squadron, who had cooped him up in 
the River Thames, in Connecticut, to pit the two frigates United States and Macedo- 
nian with any two frigates in the English fleet, (which honor, however, was declined ;) 
in his energetic negotiations with the Tripolitans, which resulted so gloriously to 
the government under whose orders he sailed, and whose flag he went to vindicate ; 
— in all these leading acts of his gallant life, as well as in many of minor account, 
Decatur exhibited the greatest talents for a naval leader, and wreathed for his brows 
a chaplet of renown which the world shall honor, and his countrymen glory in, until 



186 COMMODORE STEPHEN DECATUR 

" the sword shall be beaten into a ploughshare, and the spear into a pruning 
hook." 

Would that we could drop here the pen of record, and draw the veil of oblivion 
over the tragic act which caused his sun to disappear in mid-heaven in darkness and 
smoke. Terrible as war is, had the hero fallen amid the roar of his own victorious 
cannon, mutilated, mangled, and deformed, his had been the death of fame and 
glory; but that he should have fallen by his own hand — for we hold every duel-death 
a case of suicide — is cause for regret as deep as it is useless. 

Early in the war of 1812, Decatur superseded Commodore Barron in command 
of the Chesapeake. From that moment an enmity was established between 
them, which time only served to acerbate, and which led to many hard words on 
either side, and, in 1819, to a correspondence between them, which only precipitated 
matters, and ended in a challenge. The correspondence, afterwards published, was 
full of the most bitter accusations, cutting sarcasm, and biting irony, and was not 
justified by the positions the writers occupied in the world. 

Both gentlemen professed to reprobate duelling, yet such was their mutual hatred, 
that neither would offer conciliation, although the friends of both did what was in 
their power to prevent the dreadful result. On a raw, chilly morning in March, 
1820, these brave men, who had fought side by side for glory and their country, met 
in mortal combat on the field of Bladensburg, so famous for its unholy and bloody 
sacrifices to a false honor. Even on the Aceldaraaic field, efforts were renewed to 
procure reconciliation, but neither would recede. Accordingly, the combatants took 
their ground, and each fired at the same instant, and each received the ball of his 
antagonist. Barron was very dangerously, Decatur mortally, wounded. The latter 
was conveyed to Washington, where his bereaved wife remained in blessed igno- 
rance of the dreadful matter until a few moments before the bleeding body of her 
husband was borne to his home. Her distraction was heart rending, and the whole 
city was shrouded in gloom. 

" The garlands wither on your brow ; 

Then boast no more your mighty deeds ; 
Upon Death's purple altar now 

See where the victor-victim bleeds ; 
All hands must come 
To the cold tomb ; 
Only the actions of the just 
Smell sweet and blossom m the dust." — Shviey. 

Commodore Decatur was born on the eastern shore of Maryland, on the 5th of 
January, 1779, and was killed on the 22d of March, 1820, in the 42d year of his age. 




RED JACKET. 



RED JACKET, or Sa-goy-e-wa-tha, as is his Indian name, a chief of the Sen- 
ecas, was, unquestionably, the most remarkable orator, excepting " the good 
Logan, the white man's friend," that ever came of Indian stock. He was born about 
the middle of the last century, near where the city of Buffalo now stands, and which 
was the residence of the Senecas. He was of a brave but generous nature, and had 
small delight in the ferocities of Indian warfare. He was sagacious and prudent, 
very thoughtful, and possessed, withal, of a most determined spirit. He could nei- 
ther be terrified nor cajoled into any measure. He preserved the utmost decorum 
and dignity of manner at all times, until in the latter part of his life, when he fell 
a victim to the accursed " fire-water," which has destroyed so many of his race. His 
hut was, for years, the resort of the learned and the curious, who went thither to 
hear " the old man eloquent " discourse on the traditions of his race, or on the ab- 
struse sciences of philosophy or theology. His dwelling stood on a spot which was 
secured to the Seneca tribe, and called the Reservation. Here he dwelt, like a shorn 
king, receiving the homage of his fallen people, — those degraded braves of a de- 
graded chief, — thus affording another proof that civilization destroys, instead of 
elevating, the savage. 

IS 



188 RED JACKET. 

In his better days, many were the pious, but fruitless, attempts to convert the 
intractable Sa-goy-e-\va-tha to Christianity. He resisted all intercession, hurling 
back the argumentum ad hotninem, " Your religion does not make good men of the 
whites ; what can it do more for the red man ? " In 1805, at the request of a mis- 
sionary. Rev. Mr. Cram, from Massachusetts, Red Jacket and his tribe held a solemn 
council on the question of their becoming Christians. After the missionary had 
done speaking. Red Jacket, after solemn deliberation with his tribe for the space of 
two hours, declined the proposal in one of the most masterly speeches ever delivered 
into the ears of men. 

Red Jacket, like some of his white brethren, could not at all understand the mys- 
teries of the vicarious sacrifice — how he and his tribe could, by any method of rea- 
soning, in justice be made participators in the guilt of the crucifixion. In conversation 
with a clergyman, who was laboring to let a little light into his benighted soul on 
this abstruse subject, he observed, " Brother, if you white men murdered the Son 
of the Great Spirit, as Indians we had nothing to do with it, and it is none of our 
affair. If he had come to us, we would not have killed him ; we would have treated 
him well. You must make amends for that crime yourselves." In concert with his 
tribe, he made a formal complaint to the governor of New York on the troublesome 
interference of the missionaries, and thenceforward their rights were respected. 

In 1821, a man of the tribe died, as was supposed, through the influence of witch- 
craft. A woman was accused, tried, and executed as the offending agent. Com- 
plaint was made against Sa-goy-e-wa-tha and his chiefs, and they had their trial by 
the judicial authorities of New York. Some severe remarks were made on the 
superstition of the Indians in respect to witchcraft. But Red Jacket, who was upon 
the stand, with flashing eye and knitted brow, yet with a calm tone, exclaimed, 
*''SVhat ! do you denounce us as fools and bigots, because we still continue to 
believe that which you yourselves sedulously inculcated tAvo centuries ago ? Your 
divines have thundered this doctrine from the pulpit, your judges have pronounced 
it from the bench, your courts of justice have sanctioned it with the formalities of 
law ; and you would now punish our unfortunate brethren for adherence to the super- 
stitions of our fathers I Go to Salem ! Look at the records of your government, 
and you will find hundreds executed for the very crime which has called forth the 
sentence of condemnation upon this woman, and drawn down the arm of vengeance 
upon her. What have our brothers done more than the rulers of your people have 
done ? and what crime has this man committed by executing, in a summary way, 
the laws of his country and the injunctions of his God ? " 

The meeting between Lafayette and Red Jacket, when the former was last in the 
United States, is represented as affecting in the extreme. Alluding to the time that 
had passed since they met in mortal enmity on the field of deadly strife, the general 
observed to him, that time had much changed them since that meeting. " Ah ! " 
said Red Jacket, " time has not been so severe upon you as it has upon me. It 
has left to you a fresh countenance, and hair to cover your head ; while to me . . . 
behold . . . ! " and taking a handkerchief from his head, with an air of much 
feeling, he showed his head, which was almost entirely bald. 

On the 20th of January, 1880, at the age of eighty years, Sa-goy-e-wa-tha left 
the world to join those who had gone before him to the hunting gi'ounds of the 
i:>piril-1and. 




GOVEHNOR ROBERT Y. HAYNE. 



THIS eloquent orator and eminent statesman, so long and favorably known, as 
such, throughout the country, was born near Charleston, South Carolina, on 
the 10th of November, 1791. Mr. Hayne is an example, added to many others, of 
what may be accomplished without the aid of academies and colleges. His early 
education w^as obtained at the grammar schools in the city of Charleston ; his later 
training was in the school of life, where " the clink of mind against mind " strikes 
ont those brighter intellectual sparks which illumine the world, and reflect glory 
from the brow of genius. 

At the age of seventeen, young Hayne entered the office of Langdon Cheeves, a 
distinguished jurist and lawyer of South Carolina, and, after the usual course of 
reading, commenced the practice of law in Charleston. On a requisition of the 
general government on South Carolina for a regiment to defend the southern sea- 
board, at the opening of the war of 1812, Mr. Hayne volunteered his services, and 
entered the army as lieutenant, and served in various grades to the termination 
of the term of his enlistment, when, having received an honorable discharge, he 
returned to Charleston, and resumed the practice of his profession, in which he soon 
became prominent. 



190 GOVERNOR ROBERT Y. HAYNE. 

Starting with no patrimony, such was the success of our youthful lawyer, that, 
at the end of a few years, he found himself blessed with a competency. His 
remarkable powers as an orator soon brought him into political notoriety ; and, as 
early as 1814, he was elected a member of the house of the state legislature, and in 
1818, he was chosen speaker of that body, an office which he filled with remarkable 
dignity and promptitude for one so young. During the same session, he was ap- 
pointed attorney general to the state, being but twenty-seven years of age. In 1822, 
he was elected a member of the United States Senate, which office he retained for 
ten years. 

It was during the latter part of his second term that the nullification difficulties 
arose between South Carolina and the United States, in which General Hayne took 
so prominent and conspicuous a position, and which we need not here enlarge upon, 
as it is fresh in the memory of all our readers. In 1832, he was elected a member of 
the famous " Union and State-Rights Convention," and, as chairman of " the com- 
mittee of twenty-one^'' he reported the " Ordinance of Nullification,'" which was 
adopted by the convention, and filled the whole country with alarm and apprehen- 
sion for the safety of the Union. He was immediately chosen governor of the state, 
and, on the receipt of President Jackson's famous proclamation against the nullifierg 
of South Carolina, Governor Hayne sent forth a counter proclamation, "full of 
lofty defiance and determined resolution." After much angry discussion, plotting 
and counterplotting, fortunately for the country those difficulties were arranged 
without bloodshed or disunion. In 1834, he was elected mayor of the city of 
Charleston, and, in 1837, president of the " Charleston, Louisville, and Cincinnati 
Railroad Company," which office he held until his death, which took place at Ash- 
ville. North Carolina, September 24, 1841, in the 50th year of his age. 

"His abilities were of an eminently practical cast; he was ready in resources, 
clear in judgment and conception, fluent and graceful in speech, and endowed with 
a persuasive eloquence which never failed to find its way to the hearts of his audi- 
ence, and told with equal effect in the popular assembly and in the intelligent legis- 
lature. In public life, he was pure and patriotic, and few men ever enjoyed a higher 
degree of public confidence. In private life, he was distinguished for the same spot- 
less integrity that marked his public career, and for those domestic and social virtues 
which adorn and dignify human nature. His celebrated passage at arms, in 1830, 
with the celebrated senator of Massachusetts, [Daniel Webster,] will long live 
in the recollection of those who witnessed it, as one of the most gallant and in- 
teresting conflicts ever fought on the field of senatorial debate, and as one in which 
both of the combatants crowned themselves with laurels of eloquence, and an acces- 
sion of intellectual fame, however widely opinions may have differed in awarding 
the palm of victory. To the great railroad enterprise, of which he was the soul as 
well as the head, he devoted himself with his characteristic zeal, energy, and ability, 
ssustaining it equally by his business talent and his persuasive eloquence." 




ELIHU BURRITT. 

ONE of the most remarkable men of the present century is the " Learned Black- 
smith," who, from the scrubby boy who "blew the bellows" in an obscure 
country smithy, has, by his own genius and labor, elevated himself to the very 
head of the learned savans of the world as a linguist. ^ , , -^ 

Elihu Burritt was born at New Britain, Connecticut, on the 8th of December 
1811. He labored on the farm of his father until the death of the latter, which 
event occurred when Elihu was sixteen years of age, previous to which he had been 
blessed with but three months' instruction at the village school. He now appren- 
ticed himself to a blacksmith of the town, whom he faithfully served until he was 
twenty-one. During his apprenticeship, he suffered no moment to pass in idleness. 
While blowing at the forge, he was studying from some book set up conveniently 



192 ELIHU BURRITT. 

against the chimney ; and in this way he mastered the English and Latin gi-ammars, 
and several other elementary works. On closing his apprenticeship, he attended 
school for a half year, under the tuition of a brother. In this time, he made won- 
derful attainments in mathematics, Latin, French, and Spanish. He then returned 
to the anvil, and labored fourteen hours each day, to recruit his finances, that he 
might gratify his thirst for knowledge by purchasing the necessary books. In the 
autumn, with the vague idea that the very atmosphere of some seat of learning 
would be propitious to his wishes, he went to New Haven, and, having secured 
board at an obscure inn, he commenced his studies without instrviction, sympathy, 
or fellow-students. In the spring, he returned to New Britain, having acquired no 
inconsiderable addition to his previous stock of knowledge ; and after spending some 
months in several unsuccessful " experiments in living," he resolved to make a voyage 
to Europe, by working his passage, that he might pursue the study of the Oriental 
languages, having already mastered the Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, and 
German. 

See our hero, then, " resolutely on foot," with his face towards Boston, the nearest 
seaport, with three dollars in his wallet, and in his pocket " an old silver watch that 
wouldn't go unless it was carried," and he too poor to get it repaired, with all his 
" other worldly wealth tied up in a handkerchief." On arriving at Boston, foot sore 
and weary with a journey of more than one hundred miles, he found no ship to carry 
him to the treasm'cs which he sought; but hearing that he might find the means of 
gratifying his thirst at the Antiquarian Library at Worcester, thither he turned his 
steps. Here he studied and labored at the forge alternately, mastering the Hebrew, 
Syriac, Danish, Bohemian, Celtic, and the various languages of the Sclavonic and 
Scandinavian tongues, and perfecting himself in the higher mathematics. About this 
time, he wrote a letter, in the Celto-Breton tongue, to the president of the " Royal 
Antiquarian Society of Paris," and received, in return, a very flattering reply, accom- 
panied by many valuable and interesting documents, which were priceless treasures 
to our blacksmith-student. 

In 1838, by invitation from Governor Everett, he went to Cambridge, received 
many attentions from the literati of that ancient seat of learning, declined their 
earnest solicitations to enter the college, and returned to Worcester, which he has 
made his home to this day. About this time, he commenced giving public lec- 
tures on various subjects, but principally on Temperance and Peace, and travelled 
extensively through the country in that capacity. 

In 1845, Mr. Burritt went to England, his great heart intent on propagating his 
sentiments on the subject of war, and establishing a " Universal Peace League," in 
which he was eminently successful. After laboring in England, Scotland, and Ire- 
land for many months, he returned to the United States. 

Mr. Burritt is about forty-one. His passion for knowledge is unabated, and he 
still pursues his studies with undiminished vigor during the hours not occupied 
at his forge, at which he daily labors from eight to twelve hours. It is said that 
there is not a language, which has a written record on earth, that he has not mas- 
tered ; and he has made considerable progress in deciphering some of those myste- 
rious figure-writings, the key to which has long ago perished with their authors. 




MARTIN VAN BUREN. 



MARTIN VAN BUREN, the eighth President of the United States, was born 
at Kinderhook, New York, on the 5th of September, 1782. After acquiring 
the best prepai-ation the schools in his neighborhood afforded, he entered upon the 
study of law in the office of Francis Sylvester, of Kinderhook, where he remained 
about six years. Before he had completed his law studies, he discovered that the 
way to celebrity lay through the mazes of politics, and that he who would success- 
fully pursue it must do so without wavering or doubt. Assuming the politics of his 
father, who had been a staunch supporter of Jefferson's administration, he entered 
the arena at a very early age, and so won upon the confidence of his neighbors and 
friends as to be appointed, before he was eighteen years of age, a delegate to a con- 
vention held for important political purposes in his native county. From that hour 
to the present day he has been intimately associated with the political history of his 
country, and has held the highest offices the suffrages of his fellow-citizens could 
bestow. 

In 1802, Mr. Van Buren, with a view to his profession, removed to New York, and 
completed his studies in one of the first offices in that city, and, after obtaining a 



194 MARTIN VAN BUREN. 

license, he returned to Kinderhook, where he opened his office and commenced the 
practice of his profession. 

In 1807, he was admitted to the higher courts, and fairly entered into competition 
for the honors and emoluments of the legal course ; where his skill and forensic 
powers soon entitled him to rank among the foremost of his brethren. In 1808, he 
was appointed surrogate of Columbia county, the first public office he held. In 
1812, he was elected to the Senate of New York, where he soon distinguished him- 
self as a leader of the Madison party, and one of its most eloquent supporters. He 
was again elected to the Senate in 181G, and, during the four succeeding years, took 
a prominent part in support of the great measures of internal improvement which 
have reflected so much credit on the state of New York. 

In the year 1821, Mr. Van Buren entered upon a wider sphere of labor, having 
been elected by the legislature to the Senate of the United States, where he took his 
•seat in December following. During a course of nearly eight years, Mr. Van Buren 
distinguished himself for his attention to business, and devotion to the great prin- 
ciples of his party, and, at the end of that time, was recalled by his fellow-citizens 
to preside over the councils of his native state, and on the 1st of January, 1829, he 
took the oath of governor, and entered upon the discharge of his duties. He held 
this office but a few weeks, for, on the elevation of Andrew Jackson to the presi- 
dency, he was called to the head of his cabinet, and repaired to Washington to enter 
upon his duties as Secretary of State in March of the same year. 

Mr. Van Buren held the office of Secretary of State but two years, during which 
time, however, some of the most important measures of foreign relations came before 
his notice, and under his administration were successfully adjudicated. In the sum- 
mer of 1831, he resigned his seat in the cabinet, and was immediately sent as min- 
ister to the court of St. James. But, on the Senate's refusing to ratify his nomination, 
he returned to the United States ; and having been put in nomination by his party 
as Vice President, was elected by a large majority. Having served with much 
acceptance to his friends in this secondary office, he was triumphantly elected, as 
the successor of General Jackson, to the office of President, and was inaugurated 
on the 4th of March, 1837. Having served the constitutional period of time, he 
retired from the political arena, and has since led a comparatively quiet life. 

Of Mr. Van Buren's political acts, and the character of his administration of the 
affairs of the nation, it is not our province to speak. As a man, a neighbor, and 
friend, few public men have attained so desirable a reputation. Amidst all the 
bitter outpourings of the vials of political wrath, no stain has fallen upon the 
ermine of his private character, and he still commands the personal reapect of men 
of all political parties. 







% F-f.^ 



WASHINGTON ALLSTON. 

THIS eminent painter, and most excellent and amiable man, was born in South 
Carolina, in the year 1780, and was graduated at Harvard College, Cambridge, 
in 1800. The year following, he embarked for Europe, and remained abroad for 
eio-ht years, studying the works of the great masters, and enjoying the friendship of 
the most distinguished poets and painters of England and Italy. Among those with 
whom he lived on terms of familiar intimacy were Wordsworth, Southey, and 
Coleridge, each of whom enshrined in verse thebr affectionate remembrance of his 
genius tnd virtues. He had the instruction and friendship of West, Fuseli, and 
Reynolds. While in Europe, he not only ingratiated every one with whom he 
came in contact, but his talents and genius comipanded the respect and considera- 
tion of the masters of his art. A contemporary thus speaks of the genius of the 
American painter : — 

" In painting, the genius of Allston was adapted to the creation of both the beau- 
tiful and the sublime, although it may be inferred from the nature of his works that 
the tendencies of his mind were to subjects of stern grandeur, and of strong, deep 
feeling. His conceptions, taken from the highest departments of art, were always 



196 WASHINGTON ALLSTON. 

bold and original. He possessed a powerful, as well as brilliant, imagination, while 
the execution of his pictures was marked by a rare combination of strength, free- 
dom, and grace. As a colorist, his qualities are best described by the name applied 
to him by the artists of Italy, and by which alone he was known to many — that of 
the American Titian." 

Among his principal works were " The Dead Man restored to Life by Elijah," " The 
Angel liberating Peter from Prison," "Jacob's Dream," " Elijah in the Desert," " The 
Angel Uriel in the Sun," " Saul and the Witch of Endor," " Spalatro's Vision of the 
Bloody Hand," " Gabriel setting the Guard of the Heavenly Host," " Anne Page and 
Slender," " Beatrice," and other exquisite productions. During the last years of his 
life, Mr. Allston was engaged upon a chef-d^ oeiwrc called " Belshazzar's Feast," which, 
most unfortunately for the honor of his name and the credit of the art, he was not 
permitted to complete. Enough is accomplished, however, to show^ that the ripened 
mind of the great artist was not marred nor weakened by any manifestation oi" 
physical decay. It is the production of a great mind and heart. 

But Mr. Allston was not only a painter ; his scholarship was more than respecta- 
ble, and he cultivated the muses with considerable success. We believe that the 
first utterance of his muse, through the press, was in a small volume of poems 
issued in London, in 1813. Some of these were marked by a considerable degi'ee 
of talent. He has since increased his reputation as a poet by occasional contribu- 
tions to the press, some of which exhibit a high order of poetic genius, and rank 
him with the first class of American poets. 

A few years before his death, Mr. Allston published a tale called " Monaldi ; " a 
work of great power and beauty, and which gave evidence of his ability to write 
"elegant prose" as well as beautiful poetry. It is full of delicate touches in its 
coloring, and shows him to have been possessed of a soul keenly alive to all the 
beautiful and pure in nature and in humanity. It was just such a production as might 
have been predicated on acquaintance with the author, for " he was a man of pure 
character and strong affections, and his daily life was, in some sort, an embodiment 
of those visions of beauty which belong to the artist and the poet." 

In the classic shades and the genial influences of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
where he had spent the earlier and later portions of his life, in the midst of his 
labors, Washington Allston, the distinguished " painter-poet and poet-painter," bade 
adieu to the scenes of earth on the 9th of July, 1843, in the sixty-fourth year of 
his affe. 




J^ .^ 



MAJOR GENERAL JOHN E. WOOL 



M 



AJOR GENERAL WOOL was born at Newburgh, Orange county, New 
York. When four years of age, he lost his father, and at twelve, with a 
small share of education, he entered a store, in Troy, as clerk, where he remained 
for six years, when " he set up for himself," and was shortly after ruined by the 
conflagration of his store with all its contents. Soon after this disheartening event 
he entered the office of John Russell, Esq., a celebrated lawyer in Troy, and read law 
for the space of one year with great diligence. This was just before the war of 
1812 with Great Britain. The expectation of this event induced young Wool to 
seek an appointment in the army. His petition was answered with a captain's com- 
mission in the thirteenth regiment of the United States infantry. He immediately 
entered upon the duties of his office, and, after recruiting his company, joined his 
regiment at Greenbush, where he continued till September, when the regiment was 
ordered to the Niagara frontier. On the arrival of the regiment at Onondaga, five 
companies, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Christie, were detached and 
ordered to Niagara by way of Lake Ontario. Here, Captain Wool got his first 
taste of war, and exhibited the same spirit which has since so signally marked his 



lOS MAJOR GENERAL JOHN E. WOOL. 

military career. In the skirmish in which he was engaged, although the enemy was 
repulsed, several of the officers of the thirteenth were slain, and several more 
wounded. Among the latter was Captain Wool, who was shot through both 
thighs, though not so severely as to prevent his taking a conspicuous share in the 
succeeding splendid assault on Queenstown Heights. 

For his brave and admirable conduct in these affairs, he was promoted to a 
major's commission, and for the same heroic conduct in the battle of Plattsburg, 
he was breveted lieutenant colonel. In 1816, he was made inspector general of 
division, and, in 1821, of the whole army. In 1832, the government despatched 
General Wool to Europe for purposes of information connected with military sci- 
ence, tactics, and improvement generally. He was selected for this mission as 
having the right qualifications for the office. He sailed in the Charlemagne the 
last of June, 1832. He arrived in September, and was kindly received by the then 
" citizen Idng." He was one of his majesty's suite at a grand review of seventy 
thousand men and one hundred pieces of artillery. The minister of war conferred 
upon him power to visit all the military establishments of France, and directions 
were every where given to receive him with the most marked civilities. 

In 1836, he was despatched to the Cherokee country to superintend the removal 
of the Indians ; a duty which he performed with entire satisfaction to the govern- 
ment at Washington. In 1838, during the difficulties which occurred on our Cana- 
dian frontier, General Wool was ordered to Maine, and instructed to reconnoitre the 
whole ground in dispute. 

On the commencement of the Mexican war. General Wool joined the army of 
General Taylor, and accompanied that officer in all his brilliant campaigns, taking 
a conspicuous part in all its active service until the army covered itself with glory 
on the plains of Buena Vista. Previous to this, his duties had been arduous, and 
were performed with a sound discretion and promptitude, which did great credit to 
his judgment and skill. As inspector general, his was the duty of creating the 
armies which were to carry victory from Corpus Christi to Buena Vista, and from 
Vera Cruz to Mexico. 

In 1841, he received a brigadier general's commission, and, in 1847, for his splen- 
did services at Buena Vista, he w^as made a major general. On his return to the 
United States, this hero of two wars was every where received with the honors due 
to his distinguished services. 




LINDLEY MURRAY. 



LINDLEY MURRAY, with whose name every American schoolboy is famih'ar, 
as the author of " Murray's Grammar of the English Language," was born at 
Swetara, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in the year 1745, A miller at first, his father 
removed to the city of New York, and afterward became an enterprising merchant. 
At an early age, young Lindley was sent to school at Philadelphia. His teacher in 
the English department was Ebenezer Kinnersley, the friend and correspondent of 
Dr. Franklin. On the removal of the family to New York, he was placed under the 
instruction of a private tutor. Such was his zeal for acquiring an education, and so 
closely did he apply himself to study, that his health gave way, and he was obliged 
to abandon his darling project of obtaining a classical education. He entered his 
father's counting room, and for a time devoted himself to the pursuits and vexa- 
tions of trade, which were, however, far from being in accordance with his tastes 
and disposition, notwithstanding the pains taken on the part of his father to make 
his duties interesting by giving him a share in the profits of the business. But, 
after all, the yoke was one of servitude, and he longed for the purer air of the school 
room, and the more stimulating food of literature. His father, withal, was stern 



200 LINDLEY MURRAY. 

and rigid in his discipline; and being unnecessarily punished, as he thought, for a 
trivial ofTence, he secretly left his home, and went to Burlington, New Jersey, where 
he entered himself at a boarding school, and once more resumed his favorite pur- 
suits. He did not long remain here, however ; for, by an accident, his place of retreat 
was discovered, and, through the friendly interference of a kind-hearted uncle of his, 
he was restored to his family, and once more resumed the business he had so uncer- 
emoniously given up. 

Again tiring of the drudgery and routine of commerce, he persuaded his father, 
after much reasoning with him on the subject, to allow him to study law, and 
entered the law office of Benjamin Kissam, E^sq., in whose office his father's legal busi- 
ness was transacted. He was furnished with a fine library by his ' father, and had 
for his fellow-student the afterward celebrated John Jay. After pursuing his studies 
the allotted space of time, he was admitted to the bar, and commenced the practice 
of his profession in the city of New York. He also married an amiable lady about 
this time, with whom he lived in great harmony until his death. 

Shortly after this event, business called him to England ; after the discharge of 
. iich, finding that his health was benefited by the change, he sent for his family, 
and resided there until 1771, when he returned to New York, and resumed the 
practice of his profession. On the breaking out of the revolutionary war, he 
retired to Islap, Long Island. At the close of the war, he returned to New York, 
and once more resumed the business of his father, and purchased a beautiful estate 
at Bellevue, on the North River. But his health failing, he went again to England, 
and purchased a small, but beautiful, estate in Yorkshire, where his herltl , always 
infirm, gradually failed him. His disease was of the muscles, which shrank away 
and utterly refused to support his frame, until he was compelled to refrain alto- 
gether from any muscular effort. In 1809, he took his last ride in his carriage ; 
and from that time to the day of his death, sixteen years, he was confined to his 
room. During this time, he composed a number of books, which were published 
among them his celebrated " English Grammar," and several word's of a religious 
character. He bore his last, long, and painful illness with a rare Christian fortitude, 
and calmly fell asleep on the 16th of February, 1826, in the eighty-first year of his 
age. Both he and his wife were members of the society of Friends, and were 
greatly respected and beloved by all who knew tht^m 




HENRY INMAN. 



ABOUT the commencement of the nineteenth century, on the banks of the Mo- 
hawk, while yet they were clothed with their aboriginal forests, was born a bright, 
fair-haired boy, who, as he was the joy of his parents, was destined to become the 
artist-pet of his country. This beautiful boy's name was Henry Inman, who, even 
among those wilds, far removed from cities and from men, gave early indications of 
the remarkable genius which was destined to delight the world. 

Inman's father seems to have been a man of considerable intelligence, and he had 
the sagacity to detect in the mind of the child the indications of early genius, as 
well as the good sense to nurse it into growth. Feeling that a wider field and more 
liberal means were necessary for the development of the child's talents, he removed 
to the city of New York, and placed the fair-haired Henry under a competent teach- 
er. The passion of the child for works of art was so great, that he spent his leisure 
hours, his evenings, and his holidays in exploring the city in search of pictures and 
statuary. 

In those days, Jarvis, an artist of some pretension, had his rooms in Murray Street, 
which were the resort of the dilettarUi. In 1814, Wertmiiler's celebrated picture 



202 HENRY INMAN. 

of Danae was then on exhibition, and thither our youthful lover of the fine arts wa? 
attracted. He was delighted, and on the entrance of Jarvis, such was his "reverence 
for an artist," that he lifted his hat from his head and bowed as he passed. " With- 
out noticing my salutation," says Inman, in speaking of this visit, " he walked rapid- 
ly towards me, and, with his singular look of scrutiny, peered into my face. Sud- 
denly he exclaimed, " By heavens I the very head for a painter ! " The result of 
this interview was " a seven years' apprenticeship " of steady and thorough training, 
in which he secured the friendship of his master, and made remarkable progress in 
the art divine. 

In 1823, he opened a studio in Veasey Street, and occupied the first years of hir^ 
professional life with painting miniatures, vignettes, etc., in which he exhibited some- 
thing of the masterstrokes which rendered his more finished pieces in after life so 
famous. Among these earlier productions, " Rip Van Winkle," " The Death of 
the Last of the Mohicans," and " The Death of Leatherstocking," have a fame as 
enduring as that of their great producer. 

Inman became a member of the " Association of Artists," in 1825, and when the 
New York National Academy of Design" was established, he was chosen one of 
its first vice presidents. Somewhere about 1830 he removed to a beautiful estate 
near Philadelphia, which he had recently purchased, where he remained until 1834, 
when he once more opened his studio in the heart of New York city. From this 
time until his death, he devoted himself to the painting of portraits. So successful 
was he in this department of his art, that people flocked to his studio from all parts 
of the conntry, and from beyond sea, to secure a true "counterfeit presentment" of 
themselves. 

Another attraction of that studio was the frank and winning address of its master. 
His rare colloquial gifts so beguiled the sitter that he forgot the penance of the 
attitude, and appeared himself. This accounts for the entire absence of constraint 
in all his pictures. He was an artist born, and pursued his avocation because he 
loved and gloried in it. 

Mr. Inman was a great worker. In the " Inman Gallery," a collection of his 
paintings made after his death, there are one hundred and twenty-six pieces, mostly 
portraits ; and this does not, probably, contain one half of the productions of his 
pencil. Although Mr. Inman received the highest price for his pictures, he died 
a poor man, having involved himself, with thousands of others, in the mad specula- 
tions of 183G. 




JAMES KENT, LL. D 



THE name of Chancellor Kent is the pride and boast of the whole race of the 
Knickerbockers. It forms one part of the great judicial trine — Marshall, 
Story, Kent — which reflects so much honor on the legal history of our country. 
James Kent was born on the 31st of July, 1763, in what was then a part of 
Dutchess county, called the precinct of Fredericksburg, now Putnam county, in the 
state of New York. At the age of five, he was sent to an English school at Nor- 
walk, residing with his maternal grandfather for several years. In 1773, he was 
placed at a Latin school in Connecticut, and between this and entering Yale Col- 
lege, in 1777, he had the aid of several instructors, under whose tutelage he made 
rapid proficiency. He had scarcely become domiciliated at New Haven, when the 
troubles of that stormy period broke up the college, and dispersed the students. 
During the recess thus occasioned, the boy, then scarcely past sixteen, fell in with 
" Blackstone's Commentaries," with which he was so much pleased that he deter- 
mined to devote himself to the legal profession ; and accordingly, on leaving college 
in 1781, — which he did with a high reputation for scholarship, — he commenced the 
study of the law under the direction of Hon. Egbert Benson, then attorney general 
of the state of New York, and subsequently a judge of the Supreme Court. 



•204 JAMES KENT, LL.D. 

His natural thirst for knowledge, his great love for the profession, and his habits 
of severe application could not fail to insure success, and in April, 1785, he was 
admitted as attorney to the Supreme Court. During the time occupied with master- 
ing the principles of his profession, he read, besides the English books on the com- 
mon law, the large works of Grotius and Puflfendorf, and, by way of relaxation, 
many of the best writers in history, poetry, mathematics, voyages, and travels. 
About this time he married, and removed to Poughkeepsie, where he opened an 
office and commenced the practice of his profession, being admitted as counsellor to 
the same court in 1787. 

It was at this period that he began that course of self-training, the value and 
benefits of which the world has seen and experienced. Methodical in all his arrange- 
ments, he divided the day into six portions. As soon as the birds commenced their 
matins, he rose, and devoted the morning, until eight, to Latin, two hours to Greek, 
and the remainder of the time before dinner to law ; while the afternoon was given 
to French and English authors, the evening being consecrated to friendship and 
recreation, for which no man had a keener zest. 

Mr. Kent did not escape the entanglements of politics, but entered heartily into 
the great political discussions of that exciting period, joining the federal party, and 
acting with Hamilton and his compeers, who always entertained for him the utmost 
respect. In 1790, and again in 1792, he was elected to the state legislature. In 
the following year, he removed to the city of New York, and, in December, was 
appointed professor of law in Columbia College. While occupying this chair, in 
the discharge of the duties of which he displayed those vast stores of legal lore 
which he had been accumulating for years, he was honored by his college with the 
degree of LL. D., and he afterwards received the same honors from Harvard and 
Dartmouth. In 1796, he was made master in chancery, and in 1797, he was 
appointed, by Governor Jay, to a vacancy on the bench of the Supreme Court. In 
1800, in connection with Mr. Justice Radcliff, he was appointed to revise the legal 
code of the state, a work which these gentlemen accomplished with much ability. 
[n 1804, he was made chief justice of the Supreme Court, which seat he filled most 
honorably until 1814, when he was appointed chancellor. In this high office he 
remained until 1823, when having attained the age of sixty, the constitutional limit, 
he resigned. Being now more at leisure, he revised his lectures, and gave them to 
the world, in four volumes, under the title of " Commentaries on American Law," 
a work which has become a text book. From this time until his death, he kept up 
the same industrious and temperate habits which had marked his whole career, 
receiving the spontaneous respect of the intelligent and virtuous in the community 
in which he lived. 




JAMES FENNIMOUE COOPER. 



IT has often been said that America has no literature. If it be meant that the 
literature of our country has no claim to antiquity, that we have no long cat- 
alogue of "noble authors" reaching into the dust and rubbish of the past, the 
remark may be true. But if it be meant that we have no thinkers and writers who 
will compare favorably with their contemporaries across the sea, then the accuracy 
of the assertion becomes very questionable. Europe, doubtless, furnishes a host that 
outnumbers "the small army" of those who make literature a vocation in America.^ 
We are not of those who imagine that there is no country like our own country, 
and there are no intellects like American intellects ; nor, on the other hand, can we 
consent to the condemnation of what we produce, because it is homebred. There 
are intellects purely American of which we are proud, and to which we are disposed 
to render the tribute of our respect and admiration. Among this number is the sub- 
ject of the present sketch, and we think that he will compare not unfavorably 
with the "great northern wizard." His path lies through the flowery fields of 
fiction, but he has, like Scott, bound his phantasms so fast by history, that one 
almost forgets that he is not dealing with sober facts. Whether we sit with him on 
some sunny slope, and gaze over the rich landscape his wizard wand has enchanted 



206 JAMES FENNIMORE COOPER 

from the depths of his own rich imagination ; or prowl with "Leatherstocking " 
through the dusky and savage-begirt forests; or scud under bare poles over the 
frightened and laboring sea; or mingle in the ensanguined fray on the slippery 
decks of the " Red Rover," there* is a freshness and reality about it that makes us 
forget that all our sympathies are excited for ideal beings, or that we are feasting 
our mental eye on painted emptiness. His writings may not have the finish of 
Irving, or the severe correctness of style to be found in Scott, but there is a life- 
likeness about what he has wi'itten that gushes out like some bubbling spring on 
the mountain side, and sends a refreshing coolness to the lips. 

We cannot say as much for his attempt at history or learned disquisition, although 
he has WTitten some very creditable books in these departments ; but as a novel 
writer, we think that he stands second to none among his contemporaries. 

James Fennimore Cooper, whose family is of quite ancient descent, and main- 
tained a very honorable position in the history of the country, was born at Borden- 
town. New Jersey, on the 15th of September, 1789. At the age of ten, his father. 
Judge Cooper, removed to his estate at Cooperstown, where the child was put under 
the training of the Rev. IVIr. Ellison, the rector of St. Peter's Church, Albany, where 
he was fitted for college. After spending a few years in studying the classics, he 
entered the navy, at still a very early age, and, during a few years of service, gave 
such evidence of his fitness for a naval leader, that a commission was about to be 
tendea-ed to him, when he fell a victim to Cupid, and surrendered himself to the 
bands of Hymen. After his marriage, he gave himself up to pleasure, travel, and 
literature for some years, during which time he stored his mind with the rich 
materials which he has since wrought into such delightful fabrics. 

After various contributions to the literary journals, his first serious attempt at 
novel writing came before the world under the title of " Precaution." Then came 
the " Spy," and " Pioneers," and " Pilot," and a whole brood of fluttering successors, 
the very enumeration of which we have no room for, each adding to the fame of 
their author, as each was perused by enthusiastic and expectant readers. His last 
work was published in 1849, and Mr. Cooper's mortal remains were committed to 
the dust in 1851. But he still lives in the hearts of grateful millions, whose spirits 
have been stirred within them by his touching pathos, and whose love of country 
has been warmed into new life by the patriotism of his eloquent pen. 




HON. ROBERT C. WINTHROP. 



IF the prestige of high lineage be any thing worth, Robert C. "Winthrop may 
felicitate himself on his noble descent, he being only the sixth in direct line from 
« the great and good John Winthrop," " the famous governor of Massachusetts Bay." 
His father was a distinguished citizen of Massachusetts, and at one time lieutenant 
governor of that commonwealth. His grandfather, Wait Still Winthrop, was loaded 
with the honors of office, and was, before his death, for some years Chief Justice of 
the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. Next in the line of ascent comes John, the 
eldest son of the patriarch whose name became so famous in the early annals of 
New England. This " eldest son " was a man of high repute, and one time was 
governor of the State of Connecticut. 

Thus descended through a whole line of great men, the subject of our brief me- 
moir came into the world, it would seem, to give the lie to the trite saying, that " the 
children of wise men are generally fools," for his career, thus far, has been alike hon- 
orable to the name and creditable to himself. 

Robert C. Winthrop was born in Boston, on the 12th of May, 1809, and was educat- 
ed at Harvard ; where, in 1828, he received his diploma, and with it one of the three 



208 HON ROBERT C. WINTHROP. 

highest honors awarded to his class. He studied law under the direction of Daniel 
Webster, and was admitted to the bar of Boston in 1831. But law was not so much 
to the taste of Mr. Winthrop as the study of government. Without any particular 
political or national emergency by which to foist himself into notoriety, he entered 
into public life in 1834, being then elected to the legislature of Massachusetts, and 
has since continued in the public service. He was the representative of Boston in the 
state legislature for six years, during the last three of which he was the speaker of the 
popular branch of that body. The duties of this honorable post he discharged with 
remarkable dignity and urbanity, for one so young and inexperienced in public life. 
Whig in principle, he soon became a distinguished leader of that party, and has to 
the present time retained the early and honorable confidence reposed in him. 

His congressional career began in 1840. The resignation, in that year, of the 
representative from Boston, Mr. Abbott Lawrence, led to. the choice of Mr. Winthrop 
by a decisive majority. He thus took his seat in the House of Representatives at the 
second session of the twenty-sixth Congress. In 1841, he was reelected to Congress, 
where he took a high position, both as an orator and a statesman. His gentlemanly 
bearing; the utter absence of coarseness or abuse of his antagonist, whose arguments 
he undertook to answer ; the chaste and classic drapery of all he said on the floor 
of the house ; the amiable and frank deportment which marked his intercourse with 
society, — these soon made him a favorite with his party, and commanded the entire 
respect of the opposite side of the house. 

A personal and private affliction compelled Mr. Winthrop to resign his seat in the 
summer of 1842. His place was supplied by the Hon. Nathan Appleton, wdio relin- 
quished it at the close of that session, to enable his friend to resume his former seat 
at the commencement of the following winter ; which the latter did after an election 
almost without opposition. Mr. Winthrop continued to represent the city of Boston 
until, in the winter of 1851, he was appointed to fill the vacancy in the United States 
Senate occasioned by the resignation of Mr. Webster, In 1848, Mr. Winthrop was 
elected to the speakership of the honorable body of which he had been a member 
for six years. In this position he has manifested the same calm and sharp discrim- 
ination, urbane and energetic administration of his high and difficult office, which 
marked his early presidency over the " Great and General Court " of his native 
commonwealth. 

Mr. Winthrop is yet in the full tide of his popularity, and has scarcely reached his 
full maturity, being only about forty-three years of age. 




JUDGE HALLIBURTON. 



No man has yet taken up the pen to portray the peculiarities of an unculti- 
vated, but " real cute " Yankee, — one whose universal genius drives him into 
all climes, and among all people, and leads him to " take up," as occasion demands, 
every avocation that ingenuity can devise, from a schoolmaster down to the pedler 
of tin ware and Yankee notions, — who has so well and accurately performed his 
task as the subject of this brief sketch. Wherever in Yankeedom " The Clock- 
maker " is read, its truthfulness — bating a slight tinge of caricature — is seen and 
gladly confessed on all hands. It is somewhat humiliating to our national pride 
that such a work should be the production of a foreigner, and like Le Sage, the French- 
man, who wrote the most perfect novel that Spain ever gave to the world, — we 
mean Gil Bias, — Judge Halliburton, Nova Scotian as he is, has plucked one of the 
proudest plumes from the wing of the American eagle. 

Judge Halliburton was born about the year 1794, in Nova Scotia, and was bred 
to the law. He was placed upon the bench at an early age. He was ever a keen 
observer of mankind, and the sense of the ludicrous seems to have been strong within 
him, if we may judge by the productions of his pen and his laughter-loving and 
kindly face. 

" Like many other famous literary productions, Sam Slick appears to have been 



210 JUDGE HALLIBURTON. 

the result of an accidental inspiration. The author was a provincial judge, and in 
riding his circuit he had often encountered many peripatetic Yankees, with their 
packs of small merchandise, or their wooden clocks, which it seems to be their mis- 
sion to sell to the rest of the world. Being a man of keen observation and a lover 
of humor, the judge amused himself, probably while stopping a night at a dull tav- 
ern, by jotting down some of the odd remarks he had listened to from the pedlers he 
had encountered on his road, or met in the bar rooms of public houses. These jot- 
tings he sent anonymously to the editor of a weekly journal published in Halifax ; 
they were printed from time to time, and their truthfulness and humor were at once 
perceived and relished. They were widely copied in our own papers, and owing to 
the great desire to read them, the publisher of the journal in which they first ap- 
peared collected them into a volume and published them. They were soon after 
published in London, at the time when the reading public was absorbed with the 
Pickwick Papers, and for a while divided attention with those popular and amusing 
sketches. The author, seeing what favor had been bestowed upon his careless off- 
spring, no longer felt any desire to deny their parentage ; and he no sooner an- 
nounced his name than he became famous at a bound. Judge Halliburton had 
been many years riding his circuit and deciding the fishy disputes of the Nova 
Scotians, unknown to the world ; but as the author of Sam Slick, his name became 
a household word wherever the English language was spoken." 

Judge Halliburton has published several other books, but none of them will com- 
pare with his first careless, offhand descriptions of the Yankee pedler. His " Old 
Judge " is a capital thing in its way, and does credit to his head and his heart, but 
it wants the racy originality of the " Clockmaker." It consists of a series of 
sketches, descriptive of ordinary life in Nova Scotia. It was published in Fraser's 
Magazine, but has not since been published in book form by itself. 

Judge Halliburton is still in the very prime of life, and we hope that he may 
seriously give himself to the writing of a perfect history of his own province — a 
thing which has never been well done, and which, we are quite sure, he is the only 
living Nova Scotian any way adequate to the task. " He writes with great ease, is 
perfect master of a pure style, and had he turned his thoughts to literature instead 
of law, in the outset of his life, he would have occupied an eminent position in the 
republic of letters. He is a native of Nova Scotia, and of Scotch parentage, and is 
the first British colonist, since the independence of the United States, that has dis- 
tinguished himself in literature. His peculiar humor has been most felicitously 
characterized by an English journalist as ike sunny side of common sense" 

" Sam Slick's characteristics," says the editor of the Dollar Magazine, " are those 
which the pure Yankee most prides himself upon, and although, when placed by the 
side of any one live specimen of the race, he may appear like an exaggeration, yet 
he is undoubtedly true to nature, and will serve to give to future generations and to 
distant people an idea of one of the most marked phases in the character of the 
Americanized Englishman. Our cousins over the water are in the habit of 
amusing themselves with our Yankee peculiarities, as they may well do, for in us 
Yankees they see themselves sublimated, after an Atlantic transmigration. The 
genaine Yankee is, in fact, but a perfected John Bull, and our cousins in the " fast- 
anchored isle " may behold in us their own possibilities, as clairvoyants see in their 
t^piritual visions the forms which they will one day wear themselves." 




^^X1<. 



HENRY CLAY. 



4 MERICA has produced a few men, each of whom is a tower of strength, and 
J^\. whose memories, as they pass away, are fragrant in all the land. The subject 
of this memoir is among the foremost of these few. 

Henry Clay was the son of a respectable clergyman, and was born in Hanover 
county, Virginia, on the 12th of April, 1777. When a mere child, he lost his father, 
in consequence of which he received no other education than what was to be ob- 
tained at the common schools of that time, which were none of the best. But his 
genius and application supplied the place of means, and he soon found himself in 
the ascending scale. At nineteen, we find him a student of law^, and at twenty 
admitted to its practice. He soon after removed to Lexington, Kentucky, where he 
speedily obtained a very lucrative practice. His political career commenced soon 
after, and his first public acts do credit to his nature. He enlisted himself with 
much fervor in favor of the emancipation of slaves, a subject which lay near his 
heart throughout his long life. 

In 1803, he was elected to the legislature of Kentucky, and soon ranked with the 
ablest men in that body. In 1806, he was elected to the United States Senate for 
one year, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of General Adair. On 



212 HENRYCLAY 

'^eaving the Senate, he was again elected to the legislature, and, the following ses- 
sion, was chosen speaker, which station he held for several successive sessions, 
during which time he frequently took part in the debates which occurred in that 
body. 

In 1809^ Mr. Clay was again chosen United States senator. Here he at once 
took his position as a powerful debater and most eloquent orator. No man held 
more complete mastery over the " ear of the Senate " than the "• orator of Kentucky ; " 
and during the time he occupied a seat in that body, he commanded the respect and 
esteem of his associates. 

In 1811, his term of office having expired, he was elected to the House of Rep- 
resentatives, and, on taking his seat in that body, was chosen speaker by a tri- 
umphant vote, a station he held until 1814. It was during this period that the 
war between England and the United States occurred. Mr. Clay took the ground 
that the war should be prosecuted " with an energy correspondent to the spirit of the 
country." He advocated the increase of the navy and army, and all the means 
necessary to carry on the war with vigor. 

In 1814, Mr. Clay was appointed one of the commissioners to negotiate a peace 
with Great Britain ; and he and his coadjutors assembled at Ghent the following 
year, and accomplished their mission. From Ghent, Mr, Clay, joined to Messrs. 
Adams and Gallatin, proceeded to England, as one of a commission to treat on the 
subject of a commercial intercourse between the two countries. This mission 
resulted in a commercial convention, which became the basis ol all our com- 
mercial intercourse with other powers, and has proved of inestimable value to the 
interests of commerce throughout the world. 

Returning to this country with great credit, he was again chosen to a seat in the 
United States House of Representatives. He held his seat in this body until 1825, 
when he was appointed Secretary of State by President Adams, 

Since that time, Mr. Clay has passed nearly all his time in the national councils, 
only leaving his post at the summons of the " king of terrors," and which occurred 
only within a few months of the writing of this article. 

During the short session of Congress in 1832-3, Mr. Clay originated and brought 
forward his famous " Compromise measures," which reconciled the disunionists of 
South Carolina to their membership in the Union, and laid, at least for a season, 
that troublesome ghost of Nullification which seems to be the periodical nightmare 
of the nation. 

Mr. Clay has always exerted his gigantic powers of mind in favor of internal 
improvements, and a liberal policy towards all those powers with whom we have 
intercourse. 

Mr. Clay declined the offers of a mission to Russia, and a place in the cabinet, 
made him by President Madison, as also by President Monroe of a seat in his cab- 
inet, and the mission to England ; and twice has he been an unsuccessful candidate 
for the presidency. 



I 



SUPPLEMENT. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE SUPPLEMENT. 



I 



I 



WE have thougnt that our Biogi-aphy would be quite incomplete, should 
we confine ourselves to sketches of the lives of those men and women 
only whose portraits have been preserved ; as there are many, especially of the 
earKei' actors in American history, who have left no " counterfeit presentiment" 
of themselves to posterity. We have accordingly concluded to add a Supplement 
to each volume, embracing such eminent characters as come into this category. 
We believe that this will greatly add to the value of our work, and meet the 
unqualified approval of our readers. 

J. M. EMERSON & Co. 

New York, Jan. 1, 1853. 



INDEX TO THE SUPPLEMENT. 



Page 

Allen, Ethan, 217 

Bertram, William, 219 

Belcher, Jonathan, 220 

Benezet, Anthony, • 222 

Bre-w^ster, William, 225 

Calvert, Leonard, 22*7 

Carver, John, 228 

Clymer, George, 230 

Elliot, John, 232 

Gorton, Samuel, 234 

Heath, William 236 

Hooper, William, 237 

Johnson, Samuel, 240 

Judson, Sarah B., 242 

Lewis, Francis, 246 

Massasoit, 249 

Oglethorpe, Jame^, 251 

Priestley, Joseph, 253 

Redman, John, 256 

Tennent, William, 258 

Walton, George, 261 

Wilhams, Roger, 263 

Winthrop, John, 265 



MAJOR GENERAL ETHAN ALLEN. 

THIS stiirdy patriot, whom British gold could not tempt, nor British prisons 
subdue, — the rough, but brave, uneducated, but sagacious Yankee, — was born 
in Salisbury, Connecticut, and, when a mere child, emigrated with his parents to 
Vermont. In the famous controversy between New York and Vermont, which pre- 
ceded the Revolution a few years, he became the leader of that band of fearless 
spirits called " The Green Mountain Boys;" and, although the government of New 
York set a price upon his head, he not only escaped capture, but won the victory in 
several skirmishes with the government troops. 

When, however, the contest for American independence opened on the plains of 
Lexington and Concord, forgetting all private and lesser feuds, he devoted himself 
to the cause of his country. Opportunity was not long wanting for the demonstra- 
tion of his patriotism. A plan had been formed by some gentlemen in Connecticut 
for surprising and reducing Forts Ticonderoga and Crown Point. They communi- 
cated the project to Colonel Allen, and proposed that he should take command of 
the expedition. Nothing could have been pore^ consonant to his wild and daring 
spirit, and he readily embraced the proposition. Speedily collecting two hundred 
and thirty of his hardy Green Mountain Boys, he marched to Castleton. Here, 
unexpectedly, he met Colonel Arnold, who had been commissioned by the Massa- 
chusetts committee to raise four hundred men for the same purpose. Having failed 
to raise the men, Arnold joined the expedition of Allen, and they proceeded on 
their way, reaching the shores of Champlain, opposite Ticonderoga, on the evening 
of the 9th of May, 1775. With great difficulty boats enough were obtained to 
bansport eighty-three of his men at a time. These were at length landed on the 
shore near the garrison ; but as the day began to dawn, it would not do to await the 
coming of the rear, and Colonel Allen determined to accomplish by surprise what 
he knew he could not do by force. Nor were his ti-oops a whit behind. Stealthily, 
and with the utmost caution, they crept to the gate, where a sentry snapped his gun. 
in the very face of Allen, and then retreated through the gate. So closely was he 
followed by the brave leader of this brave band, that he could not close the gate 
until they were formed inside, ready for action. Three hearty hurrahs awakened the 
garrison, and the disarmed sentry pointing to the room where the commander. Cap- 
tain De La Place, was stiU wrapped in profound slumber. Colonel Allen rushed to his 
bedside, and greeted the astonished commandant with the sight of a glittering sword, 
and a sudden summons to surrender the fort. " In whose authority do you make 
this demand ? " inquired the astounded officer. " I demand it," replied Allen, in a 
voice of thunder, " in the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." 
Seeing the folly of resistance, the fort, with all its valuable stores and munitions of 
war, was instantly sun-endered. Crown Point was taken the same day, and soon 
after, a sloop of war falling into his hands, Allen was left complete master of the 
lake and the surrounding country. 



218 MAJOR GENERAL ETHAN ALLEN 

In the autumn of the same year, he was sent on a mission of conciliation to tlie 
people of Canada, with small success, we believe. While there, he met Colonel 
Brown, who proposed to him an attack on Montreal. There was just enough of ro- 
mance and impossibility in the mad plan to jump with his dare-devil spirit, and he 
eagerly made arrangements with Brown to carry the scheme into execution. On the 
night appointed, Allen was at his post, with a force of one hundred and ten men, but 
the promised aid of Brown was not forthcoming. At break of day, he was attacked 
with a force six times greater than his own, and, after a stubborn resistance, he sur- 
rendered ; but not until after he had made good his retreat for a mile, and his force 
was reduced to thirty-one men. 

This ended the military career of Colonel Allen. He had been too formidable 
an enemy not to be looked after with the greatest care. He was heavily ironed, 
and treated with unnecessary cruelty. He was sent to England, with the com- 
fortable assurance that the gallows awaited his arrival. For some reason, he was 
kept in England but a short month, when he was sent to Halifax, and, after staying 
here in prison from June until October, he was removed to New York. After re- 
maining in easy confinement for the space of a year or more, he was exchanged, and 
returned to his home, where he was received with every demonstration of joy and 
respect, and was immediately commissioned as major general of the militia of the 
State of Vermont. It was during this period that the British tried to bribe him to 
make over Vermont to Canada — a bribe which he spurned in such terms as to make 
the cheeks of his corrupters tingle with shame. But the old soldier's labors were 
over, and he died suddenly, at his estate in Colchester, February 13, 1789 



WILLIAM BARTRAM. 

WILLIAM BARTRAM, F. R. S., an eminent botanist, was born near the city 
of Philadelphia, April 20, 1739. From his childhood he had a taste for ob- 
serving and collecting plants, and when only eleven years of age, volunteered to ac- 
company his father in one of his tours through the uninhabited parts of the Southern 
States, in search of nondescript vegetable productions and fossils. 

After his return to Pennsylvania, he was sent to the college of Philadelphia, whei-e 
he diligently pursued his s;:udies until his sixteenth year, at which time he was placed 
with a merchant. He soon, however, abandoned mercantile pursuits for others more 
congenial to his mind. Botany and natural history were his favorite studies, and in 
these he soon made great proficiency, insomuch, that in a few years his fame had 
reached the continent, and spread throughout Europe. 

The important discoveries he made had no sooner reached England, than he was 
employed by Dr. Fothergill, and several other eminent naturalists, to make a tour of 
discovery through the Carolinas, Georgia, and the Floridas, and to communicate to 
them whatever was new and interesting in natural science. The result of these trav- 
els, so creditable to his eminent acquirements, he afterwards published in a thick 
octavo volume. 

Mr. Bartram now retired to the enchanting spot, and took charge of the celebrated 
gardens commenced by his father on the Schuylkill, near Philadelphia. To these he 
devoted the whole of his attention, and year after year enriched it with valuable 
plants from both hemispheres. Here he also pursued his researches into nature, and 
formed, for future celebrity, the mind of the celebrated author of the American 
Ornithology. 

In 1792, after the junction of the two rival faculties of medicine in Philadelphia, 
Mr. Bartram was unanimously elected to the chair of Botany and Natural History 
in the University of Pennsylvania. This honor, however, he declined, and it was 
afterwards conferred on the late eminent naturalist. Dr. B. S. Barton. 

Mr. Bartram had the honor of being a member of the American Philosophical So- 
ciety of Philadelphia, as well as of most of the learned and scientific societies of 
Europe. 

Mr. Bartram ended a life of usefulness and celebrity, and quietly sunk into the 
arms of death, at his favorite retreat on the banks of the Schuylkill, July, 22, 1823^ 
at the advanced age of eighty-five 3'ears. 

Besides " Travels through tiie Carolinas, Georgia, and the Floridas," Mr, Bartram 
published a "Table of American Ornithology," "Tracts and Observations on Natural 
History, and newly discovered Plants ;" besides numerous communications to the 
American Philosophical Society, which have been published in their " Transactions."" 

The manuscripts and correspondence of the father and son, if published, would 
form a curious and interesting volume ; and we sincerely hope, for the cause of sci- 
ence, their labors will ere long be given to the world by some lover of science. 

15 



JONATHAN BELCHER. 

JONATHAN BELCHER, Governor of Massachusetts and New Jersey, was the 
son of the Honorable Andrew Belcher, of Cambridge, one of his majesty's 
Council in the province of Massachusetts Bay, and was born about the year 1618. 
[lis father took peculiar care in regard to the education of this son, on whom the 
hopes of the family were fixed. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1699. 
Wliile a member of this institution, his open and pleasant conversation, joined with 
his manly* and generous conduct, conciliated the esteem of all his acquaintance. Not 
long after the termination of his collegiate course, he visited Europe, that he might 
enrich his mind by his observations upon the various manners and characters of men, 
and might return furnished with that useful knowledge which is gained by intercourse 
with the world. 

Daring an absence of six years from his native country, he was preserved from 
:hose follies into which inexperienced youth are frequently drawn, and he even main- 
tained a constant regard to that holy religion of which he had early made a profes- 
sion. He was everywhere treated with the greatest respect. The acquaintance which 
Je formed with the Princess Sophia and her son, afterwards King George H., laid 
fhe foundation of his future honors. After his return from his travels, he lived in 
^jostou in the character of a merchant with great reputation. He was chosen a mem- 
ber of the Council, and the General Assembly sent him as an agent of the province 
to the British Court in the year 1729. 

After the death of Governor Burnet, he was appointed by his majesty to the gov- 
ernment of Massachusetts and New Hampshire in 1730. In this station he continued 
eleven years. His style of living was elegant and splendid, and he was distinguished 
for hospitality. By the depreciation of the currency his salary was much diminished 
in value, but he disdained any unwarrantable means of enriching himself, though ap- 
parently just, and sanctioned by his predecessors in office. He had been one of the 
principal merchants of New England, but he quitted his business on his accession to 
the chair of the first magistrate. Having a high sense of the dignity of his commis- 
sion, he was determined to support it even at the expense of his private fortune. 
Frank and sincere, he was extremely liberal in his censures both in conversation and 
letters. This imprudence in a public officer gained him enemies, who were deter- 
mined on revenge. He also assumed some authority, which had not been exercised 
before, though he did not exceed his commission. These causes of complaint, together 
with a controversy respecting a fixed salary, which had been transmitted to him from 
his predecessors, and his opposition to the Land Bank Company, finally occasioned 
ibis removal. His enemies were so inveterate and so regardless of justice and truth, 
that as they were unable to find real grounds for impeaching his integrity, they 
forged letters for the purpose of his ruin. On being superseded, he repaired to court, 
ivhere he vindicated his character and conduct, and exposed the base designs of his 
enemies. He was restored to the royal favor, and was promised the first vacant gov- 



JONATHAN BELCHER. 221 

ernment in America. This vacancy occurred in the province of New Jersey, where 
he arrived in 1747, and where he spent the remaining years of his life. In this prov- 
ince his memory has been held in deserved respect. 

When he first ariived in this province, he found it in the utmost confusion by 
tumults and riotous disorders, which had for some time prevailed. This circum- 
stance, joined to the unhappy controversy between the two branches of the Icicisla- 
ture, rendered the first p^rt of liis administration peculiarly difficult ; but by his firm 
and prudent measures he surmounted the diflSculties of his situation. He steadily pur- 
sued the interests of the province, endeavoring to distinguish and promote men of 
worth without partiality. He enlai-ged the charter of Princeton College, and was its 
chief patron and benefactor. Even under the growing infirmities of age, he applied 
himself, with his accustomed assiduity and diligence, to the high duties of his ofiice. 
He died at Elizabethtown, August 31, 1757, aged seventy-six years. His body was 
brought to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where it was entombed. 

Governor Belcher possessed uncommon gracefulness of person and dignity of de- 
portment. He obeyed the royal instructions on the one hand, and exhibited a real 
regard to the liberties and hapiDiness of the people on the other. He was distin- 
guished by his unshaken integrity, by his zeal for justice, and care to have it equally 
distributed. Neither the claims of interest, nor the solicitations of friends, could 
move him from what appeared to be his duty. He seems to have possessed, in ad- 
dition to his other accomplishments, that piety whose lustre is eternal. His religion 
was not a mere formal thing which he received from tradition, or professed in con- 
formity to the custom of the country in which he lived ; it was real and genuine, for 
it impressed his heart and governed his life. He had such views of the majesty and 
holiness of God, of the strictness and purity of the divine law, and of his own up 
vvorthiness and iniquity, as made him disclaim all dei^endence on his own righteous 
ness, and led him to place his whole lioi^e for salvation on the merits of the Loru 
Jesus Christ, who appeared to him an all-suflicient and glorious Saviour. He ex- 
pressed the humblest sense of his own character, and the most exalted views of the 
rich, free, and glorious grace offered in the Gospel to sinners. His faith worked by 
love, and produced the genuine fruits of obedience. It exhibited itself in a life of 
piety and devotion, of meekness and humility, of justice, truth, and benevolence. 
He searched the holy Scriptures with the greatest diligence and delight. In his fam- 
ily he maintained the worship of God, himself reading the volume of truth, and ad- 
dressing in prayer the Majesty of heaven and of earth, as long as his health and 
strength would possibly admit. In the hours of retirement he held intercourse with 
heaven, carefully redeeming time from the business of this world to attend to the 
more important concerns of another. Though there was nothing ostentatious in his 
religion, yet he was not ashamed to avow his attachment to the Gospel of Christ, 
even when he exposed himself to ridicule and censure. When the Rev. Mr. White- 
field was at Boston in the year 1740, he treated that eloquent itinerant with the 
greatest respect. He even followed him as far as Worcester, and requested him to 
continue his faithful instructions and pungent addresses to the conscience, desiring 
him to spa/re neither ministers nor rulers. He was indeed deeply interested in the 
progress of holiness and religion. As he approached the termination of his life, he 
often expressed his desire to depart, and to enter the world of glory. 



ANTHONY BENEZET. 

ANTHONY BENEZET, a philanthropist of Philadelphia, was born at St. Quintins, 
a town in the province of Picardy, France, January 31, 1713. About the time 
of his birth the persecution against the Protestants was carried on with relentless 
severity, in consequence of which many thousands found it necessary to leave their 
native country, and seek a shelter in foreign lands. Among these were his parents, 
who removed to London in February, 1715, and, after remaining there upwards of 
sixteen years, came to Philadelphia in November, 1731. During their residence 
in Great Britain, they had imbibed the religious opinions of the Society of Friends, 
and they were received into that body immediately after their arrival in this 
country. 

In the early part of his life, Benezet was put an apprentice to a merchant ; but 
soon after his marriage, in 1722, when his affairs were in a prosperous situation, he 
left the mercantile business, that he might engage in some pursuit which was not so 
adapted to excite or to promote a worldly spirit, and which would afford him more 
leisure for the duties of religion and for the exercise of that benevolent spirit for 
which, during the course of a long life, he was so conspicuous. But no employment, 
which accorded perfectly with his inclination, presented itself till the year 1742, 
when he accepted the appointment of instructor in the Friends' English school of 
Philadelphia. The duties of the honorable, though not very lucrative office of a 
teacher of youth, he from this period continued to fulfil with unremitting assiduity 
and delight, and with very little intermission till his death. During the two last 
years of his life, his zeal to do good induced him to resign the school which he had 
long superintended, and to engage in the instruction of the blacks. In doing this he 
did not consult his worldly interest, but was influenced by a regard to the welfare of 
that miserable class of beings whose minds had been debased by servitude. He 
wished to contribute something towards rendering them fit for the enjoyment of that 
freedom to which many of them had been restored. 

So great was his sympathy with every being capable of feeling pain, that he re- 
solved, towards the close of his life, to eat no atiimal food. This change in his mode 
of living is supposed to have been the occasion of his death. Ilis active mind did 
not yield to the debility of his body. He persevered in his attendance upon his 
school till within a few days of his decease. He died May 3, 1784, in the seventy- 
second yeai" of his age. 

Such was the general esteem in which he was held, that his funeral was attended 
by persons of all religious denominations. Many hundred negroes followed their 
friend and benefactor to the grave, and by their tears they proved that they possessed 



ANTHONY BENEZET. 223 

the sensibility of men. An officer, who had served in the arm}' during the war with 
Great Britain, observed at this time : " I would rather be Anthony Benezet in that 
coffin, than George Washington, with all his fame." 

He exhibited uncommon activity' and industry in every thing which he undertook. 
He used to say that the highest act of charity was to bear with the unreasonableness 
of mankind. He generally wore plush clothes, and gave as a reason for it that, after 
he had woi-n them for two or three years, they made comfortable and decent gar- 
ments fur the poor. So disposed was he to make himself contented in every situat' )n, 
that when his memory began to fail him, instead of lamenting the decay of his pow- 
ers, he said to a young friend, "This gives me one great advantage over you, for you 
can find en<^ertainment in reading a good book only once, but I enjoy that pleasure 
as often as I read it, for it is always new to me." Few men, since the days of the 
apostles, ever lived a more disinterested life ; yet, upon his death-bed, he expressed 
his desire to live a little longer, " that he might bring down selfP The last time he 
ever walked across his room was to take from his desk six dollars, which he gave to 
a poor widow whom he had long assisted to maintain. In his conversation, he was 
affiible and unreserved ; in his manners, gentle and conciliating. For the acquisition 
of wealth he wanted neither abilities nor opportunity ; but he made himself contented 
with a little, and with a competency he was liberal beyond most of those whom a 
bountiful Providence had incumbered with riches. By his will he devised his 
estate, after the decease of his wife, to certain trustees, for the use of the African 
school. 

During the time the British army was in possession of Philadelphia he was inde- 
fatigable in his endeavors to render the situation of the persons who suffered from 
captivity as easy as possible. He knew no fear in the presence of a fellow-man, how- 
ever dignified by titles or station ; and such was the propriety and gentleness of his 
maimers in his intercourse with the gentlemen who commanded the British and Ger- 
man troops, that when he could not obtain the object of his requests, he never failed 
to secure their civilities and esteem. 

Though the life of Mr. Benezet was passed in the instruction of youth, yet his ex- 
pansive benevolence extended itself to a wider sphere of usefulness. Giving but a 
small portion of his time to sleep, he employed his pen both da}'^ and night in writing 
books on religious subjects, composed chiefly with a view to inculcate the peaceable 
temper and doctrines of the Gospel in opposition to the spirit of war, and to expose 
the flagrant injustice of slavery, and fix the stamp of infamy on the traffic in human 
blood. His writings contributed much towards meliorating the condition of slaves, 
and undoubtedly had influence on the public mind in effecting the complete prohibi- 
tion of that trade, which, until the year 1808, was a blot on the American national 
character. 

To disseminate his publications and increase his usefulness, he held a correspond- 
ence with such persons in various parts of Europe and America as united with him 
in the same benevolent design, or would be likely to promote the objects which he 
was pursuing. No ambitious or covetous views impelled him to his exertions. 
Regarding all mankind as children of one common Father, and members of one great 
family, he was anxious that oj^pression and tyranny should cease, and that men 
should live together in mutual kindness and aff'ection. He himself respected, and he 



224 ANTHONY BENEZET. 

wished others to respect the sacred injunction, " Do nnto others as you would that 
thej should do unto you." 

On the return of peace, in 1783, apprehending that the revival of commerce would 
be likely to renew the African slave-trade, which during the war had been in some 
measure obstructed, he addressed a letter to the Queen of Great Britain to solicit her 
influence on the side of humanity. At the close of this letter he says : " I hope thou 
wilt kindly excuse the freedom used on this occasion by an ancient man, w^hose 
mild, for more than forty years past, has been much separated from the common 
course of the world, and long painfully exercised in the consideration of the miseries 
under which so large a part of mankind, eqiially with us the objects of redeeming 
love, are suffering the most unjust and grievous oppression, and who sincerely desires 
the temporal and eternal felicity of the queen and her royal consort." 

He published, among other tracts, " A Caution to Great Britain and her Colonies," 
in a short representation of the calamitous state of the enslaved negroes in the British 
dominions, 1767 — "Some Historical Account of Guinea," with an inquiry into the 
rise and progress of the slave-trade, 1771 — •" Observations on the Indian Natives of 
this Continent," 1784. 



ELDER WILLIAM BREWSTER. 

Tins worthy Puritan, than whom among all the band of early pilgrims to Ne^^ 
England, none were more devout or more beloved, came over to this country in 
the May Flower, in cftmpany with Carver, Bradford, and Winslow. It is not known 
where he has born, but it was in the year 1560. He was partially educated at Cam- 
bridge, from which place he was called to engage in the service of Davison, Secretary 
of State to Queen Elizabeth. He discharged the duties of his office with great dis- 
cretion and success, and received the approval of his sovereign and his master, be- 
tween whom and himself there existed a most intimate friendship. In the disgrace 
and loss of property which befel Davison, he found the friendship of Brewster no 
summer flower. He gave him his sympathy, counsel, and purse, for at this time 
Brewster was " rich in worldlie geare." 

After he quitted the service of the court he retired into the north of England, and 
gave himself to the study of theology, and being dissatisfied with the Church, he 
withdrew, and joined with others in forming the church of which Kobinson became 
pastor. He went with them to Leyden, and was there chosen ruling elder in the 
church. He had suflered, meanwhile, many reverses, and his ample patrimony had 
dwindled away, so that he became the needy recipient of others' bounty. When the 
church separated he joined the minority, and came with them to Plymouth, where he 
exercised his functions of " ruling elder" until the time of his death in 1644. He had 
repeatedly been solicited to receive ordination and assume the pastoral office, but he 
always. declined, from a modest consciousness of his unfitness for that sacred office. 
He combined in his character, in a remarkable degree, gentleness and firmness ; a 
woman's tenderness for others, and heroic endurance for himself. Brought up in lux- 
ury, accustomed to courts and the most refined society, he submitted to the hardy and 
trying life appointed him with a most cheerful spirit, and shared his " dish of clams," 
which constituted almost his living, with those as needy as himself; grateful even in 
his greatest necessity ; thanking God, in his daily grace at meat, " that he could suck 
of the abundance of the sea, and of the treasure hid in the sands." 

Secretary Morton, in a memoir inserted in " the records of the First Church," thus 
speaks of this extraordinary and godly man : 

" For his personal abilities he was qualified above many. He was wise, discreet, 
and well-spoken ; having a grave, deliberate utterance ; of a very cheerful spirit ; 
very sociable and pleasant among his friends ; of an humble and modest mind ; of a 
peaceable disposition ; undervaluing himself and his own abilities ; inofi^ensive and 
innocent in his life and conversation, which gained him the love of those without as 
well as of those within. Yet he would tell them of their faults both privately ano 
publicly, but in such a manner as usually was well taken from him. He was tender- 



226 ELDER WILLIAM BREWSTER. 

hearted and compassionate of sucb as were in misery, but especially of such as had 
been of good estate or rank and were fallen into want and poverty, either for good- 
ness' or religion's sake, or by the injury or oppression of others. 

" In teaching he was very stirring, moving the affections ; also very plain and dis- 
tinct in what he taught ; by which means he became more profitable to his hearers, 
lie had a singular good gift in prayer, either in public or in private, in bringing up 
the heart and conscience before God, in the confession of sin, and begging the mer- 
cies of God in Christ for the pardon thereof." 

He had no deceit in himself, and held in utter detestation duplicity and meanness 
in others. He was also a Puritan of the straitest sect, and had no charity for those 
who departed from the reputed standard of orthodoxy. His life had been a consistent 
and pious one, and he beheld the approach of death without fear, and went on his 
lastjoir'tiey 

" like one 

W'lio wraps the drnpery of lii.s eoucli about liim 

A.rI lie^ down to plo.isanl dream ." 



LEONARD CALVERT. 

LEOI^ARD CALVERT, the first governor of Maryland, was the brother of Ce- 
cilius Calvert, the proprietor, and who sent him to America, as the head of 
the colony, in 1633. Accompanied by his brother George, and about two hundred 
persons of good families, they arrived at Point Comfort, in Virginia, February 24, 
1634. On the 3d March they entered the Potomac, and sailed up about twelve 
leagues, and took possession of an island, which he afterwards called St. Clement's. 
He fired here his cannon, erected a cross, and took possession " in the name of the 
Saviour of the world, and of the king of England." Thence he went fifteen leagues 
higher to the Indian town of Potomac, now called ISTew Marlborough, where he was 
received in a friendly manner by the natives. Thence he sailed twelve leagues higher 
to the town of Picataway, on the Maryland side, where he found Henry Fleet, an 
Englishman, who had resided among the natives several years, and was held by them 
in great esteem. This man was very serviceable as an interpreter. An interview 
having been procured with the prince Werowanu, Calvert asked him, whether he 
was willing that a settlement should be made in his country. He replied, " I will 
not bid you go, neither will I bid you stay ; but you may use your own discretion." 
Having convinced the natives his designs were honorable and pacific, the governor, 
by giving a satisfactory consideration, entered into a contract to reside in one part of 
their town, until the next harvest, when the natives should entirely quit the place. 

Thus on the 27th March, 1634, the governor took peaceable possession of the 
country of Maryland, and gave to the town the name of St. Mary's, and to the creek, 
on which it was situated, the name of St. George's. The desire of rendering justice 
to the natives, by giving them a reasonable compensation for their lands, is a trait in 
the character of the first planters which will always do honor to their memory. 

This province was established on the broad foundation of security to property, and 
of freedom in religion. Fifty acres of land were granted in absolute fee to every 
emigrant, and Christianity was established without allowing pre-eminence to any 
particular sect. This liberal policy rendered a Roman Catholic colony an asylum 
for those who were driven from New England by the persecutions which were then 
experienced from Protestants. After the civil war in England, the parliament as- 
sumed the government of the province, and appointed a new governor. Cecilius 
Calvert, the proprietor, recovered his right to the province upon the restoration of 
King Charles H., in 1660, and within a year or two appointed his son Charles the 
governor. He died in 1676, covered with age and reputation, and was succeeded 
by his son. 



JOHN CARVER, 

FIRST GOVERNOR OF THE COLONY OF NEW PLYMOUTH. 

THE foremost of the little band who signed the Social Compact on board the May 
Flower, was Deacon John Carver ; and the first notice we have of him, is in 
1017, when he was sent to England in company with Mr. Robert Cushmau, in the 
agency of the Puritans at Leyden, he being at that time deacon of Mr. Robinson's 
church. This embassy seems to have been the earliest step of any imj)ortance that 
was taken by the Leyden congregation towards a permanent removal to America, and 
had for its direct object certain preparatory measures, wliich were deemed of great 
importance by this little band of religious exiles, — namely, negotiations with the Vir- 
ginia Company, for certain grants and privileges, and the procuration from the king 
of his permission to enjoy perfect religious freedom in the new country, for which 
they hoped soon to embark. Negotiations for these purposes were carried on in 
England, for a considerable time, with very little satisfaction to the agents ; and, al- 
though they did not make their unsuccessful return to Holland until May, in the year 
1618, it is evident that Mr. Carver, in the mean time, passed over to the congregation 
at Leyden, late in the year 1617, for advice and instructions ; Mr. Cushman remaining 
alone in England to prosecute the business until the return of his associate, with the 
views of their constituents. This undertaking proving unsuccessful, Mr. Carver was 
discontinued as Mr. Cuslnnan's coadjutor in the agency; and in February, 1619, the 
ruling elder of the churcli, Mr. William Brewster (not Bradford, as commonly stated), 
was sent in his stead, when Mr. Cushman went over to England the second time, and 
succeeded in procuring tlie patent which was granted to Mr, John Wincob. However, 
when Mr. Cushman was sent to England in 1620, to pi-ovide the vessel, and make 
other final arrangements for the removal to America, Mr. Carver accompanied him, 
although the latter remained at Southampton, while the former procured at London 
the May Flower, and made the other necessary arrangements with Mr. Thomas Wes- 
ton, for the transportation of the pilgrims and their families. While at Southampton, 
Mr. Carver received the farewell letter from his beloved pastor, Mr. John Robinson, 
who was with the congregation at Leyden. 

On their arrival in America, our fathers drew up and signed the famous compact, 
which ranks as the earliest existing essay at forming a republican constitution ; and 
under this, Mr. Carver was selected to be their first governor. To this ofilce he was 
chosen for the remainder of the year, which ended in the following March ; and on 
the twenty-third day of that month he was re-chosen, and confirmed in the same office 
for the ensuing civil year. The duties of this office he fulfilled with great acceptation 
until his death, which occurred about one fortnight after his second election. 

When any labor was to be performed or danger to be encountered, Governor Car- 



JOHN CARVER. 229 

ver was always among the foremost. He was one of tlie party who went in the shal- 
lop, on the sixth of December, 1620, on the voyage of discovery to Grampus Bay ; 
was present at the " First Encounter," and was also one of those who went on shore 
at Clarke's Island, on Saturday, the ninth day of December, and who landed on the 
far-famed rock at Plymouth, on the ever memorable Monday, the eleventh day of 
December, 1620 ; the day which has been selected for celebration as Forefathers' 
Day, and which, according to the calendar now in use, hapjjens on the twenty-first 
day of the month, the day of the winter solstice, and the shortest in the year. When 
John Goodman and Peter Browne were lost, on the twelfth of January, 1620-1, 
and were, in their belief, in danger of being destroyed by the savages and lions, he 
and a few others went directly in search of them. On the fourteenth of the same 
month, while he and Mr. William Bradford were lying sick in the great new Ren- 
dezvous, where were deposited the ammunition and loaded muskets, they barely 
escaped with life, the same being consumed with fire, which had accidentally been 
communicated to it by a s^^ark. We find him next, on the seventh of March, with 
five others, at the great Ponds ; and on the twenty-second of the same month, he 
made the first treaty of peace and alliance with Massasoit, a great sagamore of the 
natives. Our next notice of him, is his re-election to the office of governor, as already 
mentioned ; and immediately after this follows the account of his illness and death. 
His last sickness was of short duration, he being seized with that species of apoplexy 
which, in advanced life, is superinduced by great bodily fatigue and mental exertion. 
This happened on the fifth day of April, 1621, while he was in the field with the pil- 
grims who were employed in the domestic labor of planting, and he died in a few 
days, probably debilitated by his late sickness, and much oppressed and fatigued by 
his great anxiety and care in attending his sick and dying companions, nearly one- 
half of whom had gone to their long homes before him. His death was a cause of 
much lamentation among the colonists, and he was buried by them in the best man- 
ner possible, and with as much solemnity as they were capable of performing, with 
several discharges of muskets by all that carried arms. His character is given in 
full, by Secretary Morton, in the manuscript records of the First Church of Plymouth, 
in the following words : '^ Before I pass on, I may not omit to take notice of the sad 
loss the church and this infant Commonwealth sustained by the death of Mr, John 
Carver, who was one of the deacons of the church in Leyden, and now had been, and 
was their first governor ; this worthy gentleman M-as one of singular piety, and rare 
for humility, which appeared as otherwise. So by his gi'eat condescendency, when 
as this miserable people were in great sickness, he shunned not to do very mean ser- 
vices for them, yea, the meanest of them ; he bare a share, likewise, of their labors in 
his own person, according as their great necessity required ; who, being one also of a 
considerable estate, spent the main part of it in this enterprise, and from first to last 
approved himself, not only as their agent in the first transacting of things, but also 
all along to the period of his life, to be a very beneficial instrument ; he deceased in 
the month of April, in the year 1621, and now is reaping the fruit of bis labor with 
the Lord."* 

* N. E. Hist. & Geneal. Reg. for 1850. 



GEORGE CLYMER. 

GEORGE CLYMER., one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was 
born in the city of Philadelphia, in the year 1739. He had the misfortune to 
lose his parents at an early age, but the want of parental protection was faithfidly 
supplied by William Coleman, Esq., under the superintendence of whom he received 
an excellent education. 

On arriving at a proper age, his mind was turned towards mercantile pursuits, 
and he accordingly connected himself in business with a Mr. Ritchie. Mr, Clymer's 
habits of study led him gradually to abandon mercantile pursuits for those of politics 
and agriculture, as branches which would most materially conduce to the happiness 
and prosperity of his country. The principles of Mr. Clymer were stern republican- 
ism, and the period had now arrived when they were put to the test. He was among 
the first who embarked in opposition to the arbitrary acts and unjust pretensions of 
Great Britain, When conciliatory measures were found unavaiHng, he did not hesi- 
tate to take up arms in defence of the Colonies. Mr. Clymer was chosen a member 
of the Council of Safety. On the 29th of July, 1775, he was appointed one of the 
first continental treasurers, which office he held until after his appointment to the 
Congress of '76 In this memorable year, he put his seal to that charter of independ- 
ence which has given us a rank among the nations of the earth. In 1777 he was 
re-elected to Congress, and continued to be an active and efficient member of that 
body, until the 19th May following, when the infirm state of his health obliged hira 
to retire. 

After his recovery he was employed by Congress in the execution of several im- 
portant trusts, which he performed with great ability and address. 

In November, 1780, he was for the third time elected to Congress ; from this, until 
the 12th November, 1782, he was actively engaged in the public service, and pro- 
moting its welfare by every possible means in his power. 

He was one of the most able advocates for that institution, which became afterwards 
one of the most powerful supports of the American cause, the national bank. 

In November, 1782, Mr. Clymer having retired from his seat in Congress, re- 
moved to Princeton, New Jersey, for the purpose of educating his sons at Nassau-Hall. 

This was a happy moment in the life of Mr. Clymer, when conscious of having 
acted well his part, amidst the turmoils and troubles of an eight years' war, he could 
sit down in the bosom of his family, and reflect upon the deeds which he had done, 
and the happiness which it had secured to his country. 

Nor must it be forgotten, that the services which he afterwards rendered to Penn- 
sylvania, in altering her penal code of laws, evidence his wisdom and the benevolence 
of his mind. 



GEORGE CLYMER 231 

As soon as the old Articles of Confederation were found inadequate to bind the 
States together, a convention was called to form a more efficient constitution for the 
general government. To this illustrious assembly Mr. Clymer was called, and in 
which he afterwards evinced and advocated the most enlightened and liberal views. 
On the adoption of the Constitution, he was once more called to unite his talents with 
those of the assembled sages of the general legislature. Here he gave his unquali- 
fied support to all those measures which contributed so largely to the honor and 
welfare of the nation, and conferred so much distinction upon the administration of 
Washington. At the expiration of the first congressional term of two years, he de- 
clined a re-election, which closed his long, laborious, and able legislative career. 
But he was not permitted to remain in the shade of private life. He was after- 
wards employed at the head of the excise office, and lastly in negotiating a treaty 
with the Creek and Cherokee Indians in Georgia. 

This distinguished patriot died at Morrisville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on 
the 23d January, 1813, at the advanced age of seventy-four. 

Mr. Clymer possessed strong intellects from nature, which he improved by culture 
and study. Retired, studious, contemplative, he was ever adding something to his 
knowledge, and endeavoring to make that knowledge useful. 

His predominant passion was to promote every scheme for the improvement of his 
country, whether in sciences, agriculture, polite education, the useful or the fine arts. 

His conversation was of the most instructive kind, and manifested an extensive 
knowledge of books and men. 

He was a man of irreproachable morals, and of a pure heart. In the domestic 
circle, and in friendly intercourse, he appeared to peculiar advantage. 



JOHN ELLIOT. 

JOHN ELLIOT, commonly called the apostle to tlie Indians, exhibited more lively 
traits of an extraordinary character than we find in most ages of the Church, or 
in most Christian Churches. He who could prefer the American wilderness to the 
pleasant fields of Europe, was ready to wander through this wilderness for the sake of 
doing good. To be active was the delight of his soul ; and he went to the hovels 
which could not keep out the wind and the rain, where he labored incessantly among 
the aboriginals of America, though his popular talents gave him a distinction among 
the first divines of Massachusetts. He was born in England in 1604. After receiv- 
ing his education at the university of Cambridge, he was for some time the instructor 
of youth. In 1631 he arrived in this country, and in the following year was settled 
as a teacher of the Church in Roxbury. His benevolent labors were not confined to 
his own people. Having imbibed the true spirit of the Gospel, his heart was touched 
with the wretched condition of the Indians, and he became eagerly desirous of making 
them acquainted with the glad tidings of salvation. There were at the time when 
he began his labors near twenty tribes of Indians within the limits of the English 
planters. The Massachusetts language, in which he translated the Bible and several 
practical pieces, serving the purpose of a missionary ; the first thing he did was to 
learn this language of the people. An old Indian, who could speak English, was 
taken into his family, and by conversing freely with him, he learnt to talk it, and 
soon was able to reduce it to some method ; and he became at last so much master 
of it, as to publish a grammar, which is printed in some editions of the Indian 
Bibles. 

In October, 1646, he preached his first sermon to an assembly of Indians at 
Nonantum, the present town of Newton. After tbe sermon was finished, he desired 
them to ask any questions. which they thought proper. One immediately inquired 
whether Jesus Christ could understand prayers in the Indian language ? Another, 
how all the world became full of people, if they were all once drowned ? A third 
asked, how could there be the image of God, since it was forbidden in the command- 
ment? At another time when he preached to them, an old man asked, with tears in 
his eyes, whether it was not too late for him to repent and turn unto God ? A sec- 
ond, how it came to pass that sea water was salt, and river water fresh ; how the 
English came to diff'er so much from the Indians in the knowledge of God and Jesus 
Christ, since they all at first had but one father ; and why, if the water is larger than 
the earth, it does not overflow the earth ? It was his custom to spend weeks together 
to instruct them in divine things, and how they could improve their condition upon 
the earth. He partook with them their hard fare, with locks wet with the dews of 
the nighty and exposed to attacks from the beasts of the forest ; or to their spears 
and arrows who were fiercer tlian wolves, and more terrible in their bowlings. None 



JOHN ELLIOT, 233 

of these things moved hiin ; like a brave soldier he fought the good fight of faith, 
bearing every suffering with cheerfulness, and every pain with resignation. They 
often threatened him, when alone with them in the wilderness, with evil, if he did 
not desist from his labors ; but he was a man not to be shaken in his pui'pose by the 
fear of danger. lie said to them : " I am about the work of the great God, and my 
God is with me ; so that I neither fear you nor all the sachems in the country ; and 
do you touch me if you dare." 

In his missionary tours he planted a number of churches, and visited all the 
Lidians in Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies, pursuing his way as far as Cape 
Cod. The first Indian Church, formed after the manner of the Congregational 
Churches in New England, was established at Natick in 1660. Mr. Elliot afterwards 
administered to them baptism and the Lord's supper. He made every exertion to 
promote the welfare of the Indian tribes ; he stimulated many servants of Jesus to 
engage in the missionary work, and lived to see twenty-four aboriginal fellow- 
preachers of tlie Gospel of Christ. In 1661 he publislied the ISTew Testament in the 
Indian language. 

He possessed an influence over the Indians whicli no other missionary could ob- 
tain. During the war with the sachem Philip, 1675, he appears in a character very 
interesting to the community. He was their shield. He plead their cause with great 
firmness, and prevented their extermination by an infuriate multitude. 

After living eighty-six years in this world of trial, the spirit of this excellent 
divine took its flight to a better world, May 20, 1690. Few of his family were alive 
to lament his death ; but he was lamented by the whole family of virtue, and by all 
the sincere friends of religion. Though he lived many years, they were filled with 
usefulness ; succeeding generations mentioned his name with profound respect ; his 
labors were applauded in Europe and America ; and all who now contemplate his 
active services, his benevolent zeal, his prudence, his upright conduct, his charity, 
are ready to declare his memory precious. Such a man will be handed down to fu- 
ture times, an object of admiration and love, and ajjpear conspicuous in the historic 
page, when distant ages celebrate tlie worthies of JN^ew England. 

Besides his translation of the Bible into the Indian tongue, he published the 
"Glorious Progress of the Gospel among the Indians," &c., 1649 — "The Tears of 
Kepentance," 1653 — " A Further Account of the Gospel among the Indians," 1659 
— "The Christian Commonwealth," 1660 — "The Jews in America," 1660, intended 
to prove that the Indians were descendants of the Jews — " The Harmony of the 
Gospels," 1678, &c. 



SAMUEL GORTON 

SAMUEL GORTON, the first settler ot Warwick, Rhode Island, came to this 
country in 163(5, and in a few years occasioned much disturbance in the church 
of Boston by the wild sentiments on religion which he advanced. He soon went to 
Plymouth, in which colony he was subjected to corporal punishment for his errors, 
and whence he removed, in June, 1638, to Rhode Island. At I^ewport he received 
the same discipline on account of his contempt of the civil authority. He purchased 
some land near Pawtuxet River, in the south part of Providence, in January, 1641. 
Under the cover of this purchase he encroached upon the lands of others, and com- 
plaints having been entered against him in the court of Massachusetts, he was re- 
quired to submit himself to the jurisdiction of that colony, and to answer for his 
conduct. This summons he treated with contempt; but being apprehensive that he 
was not in a place of safety, he crossed the river at the close of 1642, and with eleven 
others purchased of Miantonimoh, the Narraganset sachem, a tract of land at Mishaw- 
omet, for which he paid one hundred and forty-four fathoms of wampum. The deed 
was signed January 17, 1643. The town, of which he now laid the foundation, was 
afterwards called Warwick. In May following he and his party were seized by order 
of the general court of Massachusetts, and carried to Boston, where he was required 
to answer to the charge of being a blasphemous enemy of the Gospel and its ordi- 
nances and of all civil government. His ingenuity embarrassed the judges, for while 
he adhered to his own expressions, which plainly contradicted the opinions which 
were embraced in Massachusetts, he yet, when examined by the ministers, professed 
a coincidence with them generally in their religious sentiments. The letter which he 
wrote to the governor before his seizure, was addressed "To the great, honored, idol 
gentleman of Massachusetts," and was tilled with reproaches of the magistrates and 
ministers ; but in his examination he declared that he had reference only to the cor- 
rupt state of mankind in general. He had asserted, that Christ suffered actually 
before he suffered under Pontius Pilate ; but his meaning was, as he said to the court, 
that the death of Christ was actual to the faith of the fathers. The ordinances, he 
thought, were abolished after the revelation was written, and thus he could admit 
that they were the ordinances of Christ, because they were established for a short 
time by him. But this equivocation did not avail him. His opinions were undoubt- 
edly erroneous, and if errors arc to be punished by the civil magistrate, his punish- 
ment was not unjust. All the magistrates but three were of opinion that he should 
be put to death, but the deputies were in favor of milder measures. Gorton, with a 
number of his companions, was senlenced to imprisonment and hard labor, and pro- 
hibited from passing the limits of the town to wliich he was sent, and from, propa- 
gating his heresies under pain of death. After a few months, dissatisfaction of many 
people with his imprisonment, and other causes, ituluced the court to substitute ban- 



SAMUEL GORTON. 935 

isliment in its place. In 1644 he went to England, with a deed from the Narraganset 
Indians, transferring their territory to the king ; and he obtained an order from Par- 
liament securing to him the peaceable possession of his lands. He arrived at Boston 
in 1648, and thence proceeded to Shawomet, which he called Warwick, in honor of 
the Earl of "Warwick, who had given him much assistance in effecting his object. 
Here he officiated as a minister and disseminated his doctrines, in consequence of 
which a large part of the descendants of his followers have neglected all religion to 
the present day. He died after the ,year 1676 at an advanced age. Without the 
advantages of education, he made himself acquainted with the Hebrew and Greek 
languages, that he might better understand the Scrij)tures, though he had affected to 
despise human learning. He violently opposed the Quakers, as their principles were 
hostile to his antinomian sentiments. He believed that the sufferings of Christ were 
within his children, and that he was as much in this world at one time as at another ; 
that all which is related of him is to be taken in a spiritual sense ; that he was in- 
carnate in Adam, and was the image of God, wherein he was created. He was zeal- 
ous for a pure church, and represented those as Pharisaical interpreters who could 
establish churches, that admitted of falling from God in whole or in any part, as the 
true churches of Christ. He published Simplicity's Defence against the Seven- 
Headed Policy, which was answered by Mr. Winslow ; Antidote against Pharisaical 
Teachers ; Saltmarsh Returned from the Dead, 1655 ; A Glass for the People of New 
England, — Attends Biog. Diet. 



16 



WILLIAM HEATH. 

WILLIAM HEATH, a major-general in the American army during the revolu- 
tionary war, was born at Roxbury, Massachusetts, about the year 1737. 
At an early period of the contest of the colonies with Great Britain, he was an 
active officer of the militia ; and, in consideration of his zeal and patriotism in the 
cause of liberty, he was appointed by the Provincial Congress, in 1775, a brigadier- 
o;eneral. 

In August, 1776, he was by Congress promoted to the rank of major-general in 
the continental army. 

From 1777 to 1778 he was the commanding officer of the Eastern Department, 
and on him was devolved the arduous and responsible duty of keeping in charge the 
officers and troops captured at Saratoga. In all his proceedings with these turbulent 
captives, he supported the authority of Congress and the honor and dignity of his 
office. In the most interesting and critical circumstances in which a general could 
possibly be placed, he uniformly exhibited a prudence, animation, decision, and firm- 
'uess, which have done him honor, and fully justified the confidence reposed in him. 
In consideration of his faithful performance of this trust, he was appointed by Con- 
gress in 1779 a commissioner of the Board of War. 

In 1780 he was directed by General Washington to repair to Rhode Island to 
make arrangements for the reception of the French fleet and army. 

In May, 1781, he was directed by the commander-in-chief to repair to the New 
England States, to represent to their respective executives the distressing condition 
of our army, and to solicit a speedy supply of provisions and clothing, in which he 
was successful. 

As a senior major-general, he was more than once commander of the i-ight wing of 
our army, and during the absence of the commander-in-chief, at the siege of York- 
town, he was intrusted with the command of the main army posted at the highlands 
and vicinity. On hostilities having ceased between the two armies. General Wash- 
ington, in 1784, addressed a letter to General Heath, expressing his thanks for his 
meritorious services, and his real affection and esteem. 

Immediately after the close of the war, General Heath was called again into public 
service in civil life, and continued to hold a seat in the legislature of Massachusetts 
till 1793, when he was appointed, by Governor Hancock, judge of probate for the 
county of jSTorfolk. He was also a member of the State Convention which ratified 
the federal constitution. 

In 1806 he was elected Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts, but declined ac- 
cepting the honor. He was more than once an elector of President and Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States. 

He died at Poxbury, Massachusetts, January 24, 1814, aged seventy-seven years. 



WILLIAM HOOPER. 

WILLIAM HOOPER was a native of Boston, province of Massachusetts Bay, 
where he was born on tlie 17th of June, 1742. 

His father's name was also William Hooper. He was bom in Scotland, in the 
year 1702, and soon after leaving the university of Edinburgh emigrated to America. 
He settled in Boston, where he became connected in marriage with the daughter of 
Mr. John Dennie, a respectable merchant. Not long after his emigration, he was 
elected pastor of Trinity Church, in Boston, in which office, such were his fidelity 
and affectionate intercourse with the people of his charge, that long after his death he 
was remembered by them with peculiar veneration and regard. 

William Hooper, a biographical notice of whom we are now to give, was the eldest 
of five childj-en. At an early age he exhibited indications of considerable talent. 
Until he was seven years old, he was instructed by his father ; but at length became 
a member of a free grammar-school in Boston, which at that time was under the care 
of Mr. John Lovell, a teacher of distinguished eminence. At the age of fifteen he 
entered Harvard university, where he acquired the reputation of a good classical 
scholar ; and at length, in 1760, commenced bachelor of arts with distinguished 
honor. 

Mr. Hooper had destined his son for the ministerial office. But his inclination 
turning towards the law, he obtained his father's consent to pursue the studies of that 
profession in the office of the celebrated James Otis. On being qualified for the bar, 
he left the province of Massachusetts with the design of pursuing the practice of his 
profession in Korth Carolina. After spending a year or two in that province, his 
father became exceedingly desirous that he should return home. The health of his 
son had greatly sufiered in consequence of an excessive application to the duties of 
his profession. In addition to this, the free manner of living generally adopted by 
the wealthier inhabitants of the South, and in which he had probably participated, 
had not a little contributed to the injury of his health. 

Notwithstanding the wishes of his father, in regard to his favorite son, the latter 
at length, in the fall of 1767, fixed his residence permanently in North Carolina, 
and became connected by marriage with Miss Ann Clark, of Wilmington, in that 
province. 

Mr. Hooper now devoted himself with great zeal to his professional duties. He 
early enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was highly respected by his 
brethren at the bar, among whom he occupied an enviable rank. 

In the year 1773 he was appointed to represent the town of Wilmington, in which 
he resided, in the General Assembly. In the following year he was elected to a seat 



238 WILLIAM HOOPER. 

ill the same body, soon after taking which he was called upon to assist in opposing a 
most tyrannical act of the British government, in respect to the laws regulating the 
courts of justice in the province. 

The former laws in relation to these courts being about to expire, others became 
necessary. Accordingly, a bill was brought forward, the provisions of which were 
designed to regulate the coui'ts as formerly. But the advocates of the British gov- 
ernment took occasion to introduce a clause into the bill, which was intended to 
exempt from attachment all species of property in North Carolina which belonged to 
non-residents. This bill having passed the Senate, and been approved of by the 
Governor, was sent to the House of Representatives, w^here it met with a most spir- 
ited opposition. In this opposition Mr. Hooper took the lead. In strong and ani- 
mated language he set forth the injustice of this part of the bill, and remonstrated 
against its passage by the House. In consequence of the measures which were pur- 
sued by the respective houses composing the General Assembly, the province was 
left for more than a year without a single court of law. Personally, to Mr. Hooper 
the issue of this business was highly injurious, since he was thus deprived of the 
practice of his profession, upon which he depended for his support. Conscious, how- 
ever, of ha\nng discharged his duty, he bowed in submission to the pecuniary sacri- 
fices to which he was thus called, preferring honorable poverty to the greatest pecu- 
niary acquisitions, if the latter must be made at the expense of principle. 

On the twenty-fifth of August, 17Y4, Mr. Hooper was elected a delegate to the 
General Congress, to be held at Philadelphia. Soon after taking his seat in this 
body, he w^as placed upon several important committees, and, when occasion required, 
took a share in the animated discussions which were had on the various important 
subjects which came before them. On one occasion, and the first on which he ad- 
dressed the House, it is said, that he so. entirely riveted the attention of the members 
by his bold and animated language, that many expressed their wonder that such elo- 
quence should flow forth from a member from North Carolina. 

In the following year Mr. Hooper was again appointed a delegate to serve in the 
Second General Congress, during whose session he was selected as the chairman of a 
committee appointed to report an address to the inhabitants of Jamaica. The draught 
was the production of his pen. It was characterized for great boldness, and was 
eminently adapted to produce a strong impression upon the people for whom it was 
designed. In conclusion of the address, Mr. Hooper used the following bold and 
animated language : 

" That our petitions have been treated with disdain, is now become the smallest 
part of our complaint : ministerial insolence is lost in ministerial barbarity. It has, 
by an exertion peculiarly ingenious, procured those very measures which it laid us 
under the hard necessity of pursuing, to be stigmatized in parliament as rebellious: 
it has employed additional fleets and armies for the infamous purpose of compelling 
us to abandon them : it has plunged us in all the horroi*s and calamities of a civil 
war : it has caused the treasure and blood of Britons (formerly shed and expended 
for far other ends), to be spilt and wasted in the execrable design of spreading slav- 
ery over British America. It will not, however, accomplish its aim ; in the worst 
of contingencies a choice will still be left, which it never can prevent us from 
makino;." 



WILLIAM HOOPER. 239 

In January, 1776, Mr. Hooper was appointed, with Dr. Franldin and Mr. Liv- 
ingston, a committee to report to Congress a proper method of honoring the memory 
of General Montgomery, who had then recently fallen beneath the walls of Quebec. 
This committee, in their report, recommended the erection of a monument, which, 
while it expressed the respect and affection of the colonies, might record, for the 
benefit of future ages, the patriotic zeal and fidelity, enterprise and perseverance of 
the hero, whose memory the monument was designed to celebrate. In compliance 
M'ith the recommendation of this committee, a monument was afterwards erected by 
Congress in the city of New York. 

In the si)rii)g, 1776, the private business of Mr. Hooper so greatly required his 
attention in Korth Carolina, that he did not attend upon the sitting of Congress. He 
returned, however, in season to share in the honor of passing and publishing to the 
world the immortal Declaration of Independence. 

On the twentieth of December, 1776, he was elected a delegate to Congress for 
the third time. The embarrassed situation of his private affairs, however, rendered 
his longer absence from Carolina inconsistent with his interests. Accordingly, in 
February, 1777, he relinquished his seat in Congress, and not long after tendered to 
the General Assembly his resignation of the important trust. 

But although he found it necessary to retire from this particular sphere of action, 
he was, nevertheless, usefully employed in Carolina. He was an ardent friend to his 
country, zealously attached to her rights, and ready to make every required personal 
sacrifice for her good. Nor like many other patriots of the day, did he allow himself 
to indulge in despondency. While to others the prospect appeared dubious, he would 
always point to some brighter spots on the canvas, and upon these he delighted to 
dwell. 

In 1786 Mr. Hooper was appointed by Congress one of the judges of a federal 
com't, which was formed for the purpose of settling a controversy which existed be- 
tween the States of New York and Massachusetts, in regard to certain lands, the 
jurisdiction of which each pretended to claim. The point at issue was of great im- 
portance, not only as it related to a considerable extent of territory, but in respect of 
the people of these two States, among whom great excitement prevailed on the sub- 
ject. Fortimately, the respective parties themselves appointed commissioners to 
settle the dispute, which was at length amicably done, and the above federal court 
were saved a most difficult and delicate duty. 

In the following year, the constitutional infirmities of Mr. Hooper increasing, his 
health became considerably impaired. He now gradually relaxed from public and 
professional exertions, and in a short time sought repose in retirement, which he 
greatly coveted. In the month of October, 1790, at the early age of forty-eight years, 
he was called to exchange worlds. 

As a politician, Mr. Hooper was characterized for judgment, ardor, and constancy. 
In times of the greatest political difficulty and danger, he was calm, but resolute. 
He never desponded ; but, trusting to the justice of his country's cause, he had an 
unshaken confidence that Heaven would protect and deliver her. — Lives of the 
Signers of the Declaration of Independence. 



SAMUEL JOHNSON, P.D. 

SAMUEL JOHNSON, D. D., first president of King's College, New York, was 
born in Guilford, Connecticut, October 14, 1696. He early felt an unconquerable 
desire for the acquisition of knowledge, and was graduated at Yale College in 1714. 
In the succeeding year the ignorance and incapacity of the instructors of the seminary 
at Say brook induced the students to abandon it. Some of them went to Wethersfield, 
where a school was established under the care of Messrs. Williams and Smith ; and 
some of them put themselves under the tuition of Mr. Johnson at Guilford. In Octo- 
ber, 1716, the trustees and general court directed the college to be removed to New 
Haven, and Mr. Johnson was chosen one of the tutors. The first commencement in 
New Haven was held in September, 1717, and Mr. Andrew, of Milford, officiated as 
rector, and on the same day degrees were conferred at Wethersfield. There was a 
party who wished to have the college established in this last place ; but the General 
Assembly required all the scholars to repair to New Haven. They complied at first, 
but soon returned. The afi^air was settled by an agreement on the part of the As- 
sembly to confirm the degrees which had been conferred at Wethersfield, and to build 
a State-house in the neigliboring town of Hartford at the public expense. Mr. John- 
son continued as tuti>r at the college till March 20, 1720, when he was ordained the 
minister of West Haven. Having an aversion to extemporary performances, it was 
his practice to use forms of prayer, and to write only one sermon in a montli. He 
usually preached the discourses of others, minuting down only the heads, and ex- 
pressing himself, when his remembrance of the words of the author failed him, in 
language of his own. Having embraced the Arminian doctrines, and by close exam- 
ination having become a convert to the Episcopalian worship and church government, 
he resigned his charge at West Haven, and embarked at Boston with President Cut- 
ler for England, November 5, 1722. Having received ordination as a missionary for 
Stratford, Connecticut, he arrived at that place in November, 1723. His predecessor 
and friend, Mr. Pigot, was immediately removed to Providence. Mr. Johnson was 
now the only Episcopalian minister in Connecticut, and there were but few families 
of the English church in the colony. They were not increased in Stratford by means 
of his labors, but in the neighboring towns, where he sometimes officiated, many fam- 
ilies conformed. The desire of escaping the congregational tax, by joining a church 
whose minister received a salary from a foreign society, and the petty quarrels which 
exist in most congregations, were causes, according to Mr. Hobart, of no inconsider- 
able infinence in multiplying the Episcopalians in Connecticut. Between the years 
1725 and 1736 Mr. Johnson was engaged in a controversy on the subject of episco- 
pacy with Mr. Dickinson, Mr. Foxcroft, and Mr. Graham. Entering on a new course 
of studies, he procured the works of Mr. John Hutchinson, and embraced many of 
his sentiments. He regarded him as a person of a stupendous genius, little inferior 



SAMUEL JOHNSON, D.D. 24] 

even to that of Sir Isaac Newton, whose principles he opposed; and he thought, that 
in his writings he had discovered many important, ancient truths, had effectually 
confuted the Jews, infidels, Arians, and heretics of other denominations, and proved 
that the method of redemption by Jesus Christ was better understood in the pati'i- 
archal and Mosaic ages than was generally imagined. In 1754 he was elected presi- 
dent of the college which had been lately instituted at New Yurk. He went to that 
place in April and soon commenced his labors. The charter was procured October 
31, 1754. In March, 1763, he resigned, and was succeeded by the Rev. Myles 
Cooper. He passed the remainder of his days in the peaceful retreat of Stratford, 
resuming his former charge, and continuing in the ministry till his death, January 6, 
1772, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. 

Dr. Johnson was in his person rather tall, and in tlie latter part of his life consid- 
erably corpulent. While his countenance was majestic there was also something in 
it which was pleasing and familiar. He was happy in a calmness of temper which 
■was seldom discomposed. Tliose who knew him generally loved and revered him. 
The same good disposition, which rendered him amiable in private Hfe, marked all 
his proceedings of a public nature, and may be discovered in his controversial writ- 
ings. Benevolence was a conspicuous trait in his character. He seldom suffered a 
day to pass without doing to others some good offices relating to their temporal or 
spiritual affairs. His convei-sation was enlivened by the natural cheerfulness of his 
disposition, yet in his freest discourse he retained a respect to his character as a cler- 
gyman. He possessed a quick perception and sound judgment, and by incessant 
study through a long life he became one of the best scholars and most accomj^lished 
divines of which Connecticut can boast. By his acquaintance with Dean Berkeley, he 
became a convert to the j)eculiar metaphysical opinions of that great man. His piety 
was unmingled with gloom or melancholy, and he contemplated mth admiration and 
gratitude the wonderful plan of redemption by the incarnation and sufferings of the 
eternal Son of God. An account of his life, written by the Rev. Dr. Chandler, was 
given to the public in 1805. 

He published. Plain Reasons for conforming to the Churcli, 1733; two tracts in 
the controversy with Mr. Gi'aham ; A Letter from Aristocles to Authades ; a defence 
of it in a letter to Mr. Dickinson ; a System of Morality, 1746, designed to check the 
Progress of Enthusiasm ; a Compendium of Logic, 1752 ; a Demonstration of the 
Reasonableness, Usefulness, and Great Duty of Prayer, 1761 ; a sermon on the Beau- 
ties of Holiness in the Worship of the Church of England ; a Short Vindication of the 
Society for Propagating the Gospel ; an English Grammar and a Catechism, 1765 ; a 
Hebrew Grammar, 1767; this evinced an accurate acquaintance with that language, 
and it was reprinted with improvements in l771.-^-AUe7i^s Biog. Diet. 



SARAH B. JUDSON. 

AMONG our portraits maj be found those of the first and third wives of the 
• celebrated missionary,. Rev. Dr. Judson. His second wife left behind no por- 
trait, and as we were desirous to present the family group complete, we have thought 
best to add a sketch of her life in our supplement. For the materials of the following 
sketch, we are indebted to Arabella Stuart's Biography of the three Mrs. Judsons. 

Sarah B. Hall was the eldest of thirteen children. Her parents were Ralph and 
Abiah Hall, who removed during her infancy from Alstead, New Hamj^shire, the 
place of her birth, to Salem, in the State of Massachusetts. Her parents, not being 
wealthy, she was early trained to those habits of industry, thoughtfulness, and self- 
denial which distinguished her through life. 

Gentle and affectionate in disposition, and persuasive and winning in manners, 
there was yet an ardor and enthusiasm in her character, combined with a quiet firm- 
ness and perseverance, that insured success in M^iatever she attempted, and gave 
promise of the lofty excellence to which she afterwards attained. All who have 
sketched her character notice one peculiarity — and it is one which commonly attends 
high merit — her modest unol)trusiveness. She was very fond of little children, and 
easily won their affections ; but showed little disposition, even in childhood, to mingle 
in the sports of those of her own age. 

Her early poetical attempts evince uncommon facility in versification, and talent, 
that if cultivated, might have placed her high in the ranks of those who have trod 
the flowery paths of literature : but hers was a higher vocation ; and poetry, which 
was the delightful recreation of her childhood, and never utterly neglected in her 
riper years, was never to her any thing tnore than a recreation. Her effusions at the 
age of thirteen are truly remarkable, when we consider the circumstances under which 
they were written. 

Sarah, from her earliest years, took great delight in reading. At four years, says 
her brother, she could read readily in any common book. Her rank in her classes 
in school was always high, and her teachers felt a pleasure in instructing her. On 
one occasion, when about thirteen, she was compelled to signify to the principal of a 
female seminary that her circumstances would no longer permit her to enjoy its ad- 
vantages. The teacher, unwilling to lose a pupil who was an honor to tiie school, 
iind who so highly appreciated its privileges, remonstrated with her upon her inten- 
tion, and finally prevailed on her to remain. Soon after she commenced instructing 
a class of small children, and was thus enabled to keep her situation in the seminary 
without sacrificing her feelings of independence. 

Her first deep and decided convictions of sin seem to have been produced, about 



SARAH B. JUDSON. 243 

the year 1820, under the preaching of Mr. Cornelius. Her struggles of mind were 
fearful, and she sunk almost to the verge of despair; but hope dawned at last, and 
she was enabled to consecrate her whole being to the service of her Maker. She 
soon after united with the first Baptist Church in Salem, under the care of Dr, 
BoUes. 

The missionary spirit was early developed in her heart. Even before her con- 
version, her mind was often exercised with sentiments of commiseration for the 
situation of ignorant heathen and idolaters ; and after that event, it was the leading 
idea of her life. 

Shortly after her conversion, says her brother, she observed the destitute condi- 
tion of the children in the neighborhood in which she resided. With the assistance 
of some young friends as teachers, she organized, and continued through the favora- 
ble portions of the year, a Sunday-school, of which she assumed the responsibility of 
superintendent; and at the usual annual celebrations she, with her teachers and 
scholars, joined in the exercises which accompany that festival. 

The strong bias of her mind towards a missionary life, was well known to her 
mother, who even remembered with a tender interest an incident connected with it. 
Sarah had been deeply affected by the death of Colman, who in the midst of his 
labors among the heathen had suddenly been called to his reward. Some time after- 
ward she returned from an evening meeting, and, with a countenance radiant with 
joy, announced — what her pastor had mentioned in the meeting — that a successor to 
Colman had been found ; a young man in Maine named Boardman had determined 
to raise and bear to pagan Burmah the standard which had fallen from his dying 
hand. With that maternal instinct which sometimes forebodes a future calamity, 
however improbable, her mother turned away from her daughter's joyous face, for 
the thought flashed involuntarily through her mind that the young missionary would 
seek as a companion of his toils a kindred spirit ; and where would he find one so 
congenial as the lovely being before her? 

Her fears were realized. Some lines written by " the enthusiastic Sarah" on the 
death of Colman, met the eye of the " young man in Maine," who was touched and 
interested by the spirit whicli breathes in them, and did not rest till he had formed 
an acquaintance with their author. This acquaintance was followed by an engage- 
ment ; and in about two years Sarah's ardent aspirations were gratified — she was a 
missionary to the heathen. 

George Dana Boardman, the successor to Colman before spoken of, was the son 
of a Baptist clergyman in Livermore, Maine, and was born in 1801. Though feeble 
in body, he had an ardent thirst for knowledge, which often made him conceal illness 
for fear of being detained from school. 

When the news of the death of Mr. Judson's fellow-missionary, Colman, reached 
America, his soul was filled with desire to supply the place of that beloved laborer 
in the Burman field, and as soon as his engagements allowed, he hastened to ofier 
his services to the Board of Foreign Missions, and was at once accepted as a mis- 
sionary. 

On the 3d of July, 1825, the marriage took place. Miss Hall being then twenty- 
one years old, and Mr. Boardman twenty-four. On the day following their marriage 
they left Salem for the place of embarkation. They were to sail first to Calcutta, and 



244 SARAH B. JUDSON. 

if, on reaching there, the troubles in Biu-mah should prevent their going at once to 
that country, they were to remain in Calcutta, and apply themselves to the acquisition 
of the Burman laneruao:e. 

Mrs. Boardman, with her husband, took her final leave of her beloved native land 
on the 16th of July, 1825. From Chitpore, four miles above Calcutta, Mr. Board- 
man writes : " It gives me much pleasure to write you from the shores of India, 
Through the goodness of God, we arrived at Sand-Heads on the 23d ult., after a 
voyage of 127 days. We were slow in our passage up the Hoogly, and did not arrive 
in Calcutta until the 2d iust. We had a very agreeable voyage — religious service at 
meals, evening prayers in the cabin, and, when the weather allowed, public worship 
in the steerage on Lord's-day morning. 

" At noon, December 2d, we came on shore, and were received verj^ kindly by the 
English missionaries. We found Mrs. Colnian waiting with a carriage to bring us 
out to this place. The cottage we occupy was formerly the residence of Mr. and Mrs. 
Eustace Carey. Mr. and Mrs Wade, Mrs. Colman, Mrs. Boardman, and myself, 
compose a very happy American family. But we long to be laboring in Burmah." 

The place fixed upon as the seat of government in the newly-acquired British ter- 
ritory in Burmah was Amherst, on the Martaban river, about seventy-five miles east- 
ward of Rangoon. To this new city of Amherst Mr. and Mrs. Boardman came in the 
spring of 1827, and joined Mr. and Mrs. Wade and Mr. Judson. It was bitterly 
painful to them to learn that the wife of the latter, that noble and beloved woman 
whose life had been preserved as if by miracle, in a thousand dangers, and from 
whose society and intercourse they had hoped and expected the greatest pleasure and 
profit, was the tenant of a lowly grave beneath the hopia-tree ; and even more imme- 
diately distressing to find that her heart-broken husband was just about to consign 
to the same dreary bed the only relic remaining to him of his once lovely family — 
the sweet little Maria. One of Mr. Boardman's first labors in Burmah w^as to make 
a cofiin for the child with his own hands, and to assist in its burial. Poor babe! 
" so closed its brief, eventful history." 

On consultation, it was determined that Mr. and Mrs. Wade should remain in 
Amherst, and that Mr. and Mrs. Boardman should proceed to Maulmain, a town 
twenty-five miles up the river, which had sprung into being in the same manner as 
Amherst, and was nearly as populous, and that Mr. Judson should divide his time 
between the two stations. 

In pursuance of this plan Mr. Boardman removed his family, which had been in- 
creased by the addition of a lovely daughter, now about five months old, to the new 
city of Maulmain. On the evening of May 28th Mr. Boardman makes this entry in 
liis journal : " After nearly two hours of wanderings without any certain dwelling- 
place, we have to-day become inhabitants of a little spot of earth, and have entered 
a house which we call our earthly home. None but those who have been in similar 
circumstances can conceive the satisfaction we now enjoy." ..." The population of 
the town is supposed to be 20,000. One year ago it was all a thick jungle^ without 
an inhabitant P'' 

In accordance with instructions received from America, it was decided that Mr. 
and Mrs. Boardman should remove to Tavoy. This city is situated on the River 
Tavoy, 150 miles south of Maulmain, and had at that time a population of 6000 



SARAH B. JUDSON. 245 

Burmans and 3000 foreigners. The city was the stronghold of the religion of Gau- 
duma, and the residence of two hundred priests. 

On arriving at Tavoj they were kindly received by Mr. Burney, the English resi- 
dent, and within ten days from their arrival had procured a house and begun to 
teach inquirers in the way of salvation. 

In December of the year 1828 Mrs. Boardman was called to a trial which, of all 
others, was most fitted to make her feel that every earthly dependence is at best but 
a broken reed. Her almost idolized husband, her guide, her only human support, 
protector, and companion, was attacked by that insidious and incurable malady which 
was destined at no distant day to close his career of usefulness on earth, and send 
him early to his reward. A copious hemorrhage from the lungs warned him that his 
time for earthly labor was short, and seemed to increase his desire to work while his 
day lasted. As soon as his strength was sufficiently restored after his first attack, 
namely, in February, 1829, he resolved to fulfil his long-cherished intention to visit 
the Karens in their native villages. 

On the revolt of Tavoy from the British rule, Mr. Boardman took his family again 
to Maulmain until quiet should be restored to Tavoy. The scenes of suffering through 
which they were called to pass were well calculated to awe the stoutest heart ; but 
this noble woman bore all with true heroic fortitude and Christian cheerfulness. 
Shortly after her i-eturn to Tavoy she lost her second child, and came near the borders 
of the unseen world herself. But the greatest trial of her life was at hand ; for in the 
autumn of 1830 she committed to their last resting-place the mortal remains of her 
loving and devoted husband. She bore this calamitous stroke with great fortitude ; 
and, on calm consideration, I'esolved to remain in India, and do what she could to 
cai-ry on the work among the Karens, so successfully commenced by her husband. 

On the 10th of April, 1834, Mrs. Boardman was married to one whose character 
she afterwards declared to be "a complete assemblage of all that woman could wish 
to love and honor," the Eev. Dr. Judson. With him she removed to her new home 
in Maulmain, which had undergone wonderful changes since she left it in 1828. 
Then, the only church there had three native members ; now, she found there three 
churches, numbering two hundred members ! Her duties now were different from 
what they had been, but not less important. 

After eleven years of devotion and trial, Mrs. Judson, whose health had been 
gradually failing, resolved on a voyage across the Atlantic, and, having reached the 
Island of St. Helena, she died on ship-board, in the summer of 1845, aged forty-two 
years. 

Arrangements were made to carry the body on shore. The Rev. Mr. Bertram, 
from the Island, came on board, and was led into the state-room where lay all that 
was mortal of Mrs. Judson. "Pleasant," he says, "she was even in death. A sweet 
smile beamed on her countenance, as if heavenly grace had stamped it there. The 
bereaved husband and three weeping children fastened their eyes upon the loved re- 
mains, as if they could have looked forever." 

The coffin was borne to the shore, the boats forming a kind of procession, their 
oars beating the waves at measured intervals as a sort of funeral knell. The earth 
received her dust, and her bereaved husband continued his sad voyage towards his 
native land, again a widowed mourner. 



FRANCIS LEWIS. 

FRxVNCIS LEWIS was a native of LandafF, in South Wales, where he was born 
in 1713. His father was a clergyman, belonging to the Established Church. 
His mother was the daughter of Dr. Pettingal, who was also a clergyman of the 
Episcopal Establishment, and had hjs residence in North Wales. At the early age 
of four or five years, being left an orphan, the care of him devolved upon a maternal 
maiden aunt, who took singular pains to have him instructed in the native language 
of his country. He was afterwards sent to Scotland, where, in the family of a rela- 
tion, he acquired a knowledge of the Graelic. From this he was transferred to the 
school of Westminster, where he completed his education, and enjoyed the reputation 
of being a good classical scholar. 

Mercantile pursuits being his object, he entered the counting-room of a London 
merchant, where, in a few years, he acquired a competent knowledge of the profes- 
sion. On attaining to the age of twenty-one years, he collected the property which 
had been left him by his father, and, having converted it into merchandise, he sailed 
for New York, where he arrived in the spring of 1735. 

Leaving a part of his goods to be sold in New York, by Mr. Edward Annesly, 
with whom he had formed a commercial connection, he transported the remainder to 
Philadelphia, whence, after a residence of two years, he returned to the former city, 
and there became extensively engaged in navigation and foreign trade. About this 
time he connected himself by marriage with the sister of his partner, by whom he 
had several children. 

Mr. Lewis acquired the character of an active and enterprising merchant. In the 
course of his commercial transactions, he traversed a considerable part of the conti- 
nent of Europe. He visited several of the seaports of Russia, the Orkney and Shet- 
land islands, and twice suffered shipwreck on the Irish coast. 

During the French or Canadian war, Mr. Lewis was, for a time, agent for supply- 
ing the British troops. In this capacity, he was present at the time when, in 
August, 1756, the fort of Oswego was surrendered to the distinguished French gen- 
eral, Montcalm. The fort was at that time commanded by the British Colonel 
Mersey. On the tenth of August Montcalm approached it with more than five thou- 
sand Europeans, Canadians, and Indians. On the twelfth, at midnight, he opened 
the trenches with thirty-two pieces of cannon, besides several brass mortars and 
howitzers. The garrison, having fired away all their shells and ammunition, Colonel 
Mersey ordered the cannon to be spiked, and crossed the river to Little Oswego Fort, 
without the loss of a single man. Of the deserted fort the enemy took immediate 
possession, and from it began a fire which was kept up without intermission. The 
next day Colonel Mersey was killed while standing by the side of Mr. Lewis. 



FRANCIS LEWIS. 247 

The garrison, being thus deprived of their commander, their fort destitute of a 
cover, and no prospect of aid presenting itself, demanded a capitulation, and surren- 
dered as prisoners of war. Tlie garrison consisted at this time of the regiments of 
Shirley and Pepperell, and amomited to one thousand and four hundred men. The 
conditions required and acceded to were, that they should be exempted from plun- 
der, conducted to Montreal, and treated with humanity. The services rendered by 
Mr. Lewis during the war were held in such consideration by the British govern- 
ment, that at the close of it he received a grant of five thousand acres of land. 

The conditions upon which the garrison at Fort Oswego surrendered to Montcalm, 
were shamefully violated by that commander. They were assured of kind treatment ; 
but no sooner had the surrender been made, than Montcalm allowed the chief warrior 
of the Indians — who assisted in taking the fort — to select about thirty of the prison- 
ers, and do with them as he j)leased. Of this number Mr. Lewis was one. Placed 
thus at the disposal of savage power, a speedy and cruel death was to be expected. 
The tradition is, however, that he soon discovered that he was able to converse with 
the Indians, by reason of the similarity of the ancient language of Wales, which he 
understood, to the Indian dialect. The ability of Mr. Lewis thus readily to commu- 
nicate with the chief, so pleased the latter, that he treated him kindly, and, on arriving 
at Montreal, he requested the French Governor to allow him to return to his family 
without ransom. The request, however, was not granted, and Mr. Lewis was sent as 
a prisoner to France, from which country, being some time after exchanged, he 
returned to America. 

This tradition as to the cause of the liberation of Mr. Lewis, is incorrect ; no such 
afiinity existing between the Cymreag, or ancient language of "Wales, and the lan- 
guage of any of the Indian tribes found in North America. The cause might have 
been, and probably was, some unusual occurrence or adventure ; but of its precise 
nature we are not informed. 

Although Mr. Lewis was not born in America, his attachment to the country was 
coeval with his settlement in it. He early espoused the patriotic cause against the 
encroachments of the British government, and was among the first to unite with an 
association which existed in several parts of the country, called the " Sons of Liberty," 
the object of which was to concert measures against the exercise of an undue power 
on the part of the mother country. 

The independent and patriotic character which-Mr. Lewis was known to possess, 
the uniform integrity of his life, the distinguished intellectual powers with w^hich he 
was endued, all pointed him out as a proper person to assist in taking charge of the 
interests of the colony in the Continental Congress. Accordingly, in April, 1775, he 
was unanimously elected a delegate to that body. In this honorable station he was 
continued by the Provincial Congress of New York through the following year, 1776, 
and was among the number who declared the colonies forever absolved from their 
allegiance to the British crown, and from that time entitled to the rank and privileges 
of free and independent States. 

In several subsequent years he was appointed to represent the State in the national 
legislature. During his Congressional career, Mr. Lewis was distinguished for a be- 
coming zeal in the cause of liberty, tempered by the influence of a correct judgment 
and a cautious prudence. He was employed in several secret services, in the pur- 



248 FRANCIS LEWIS. 

chase of provisions and clotliing for the army, and in the importation of military 
stores, particularly arms and ammunition. In transactions of this kind, his commer- 
cial experience gave him great facilities. He was also employed on various commit- 
tees, in which capacity he rendered many valuable services to his country. 

In 1775 Mr. Lewis removed his family and effects to a country seat which he 
owned on Long Island. This proved to be an unfortunate step. In the autumn of 
the following year his house was plundered by a party of British light-horse. His 
extensive library and valuable papers of every description were wantonly destroyed. 
Nor were they contented with this ruin of his 2>roperty. They thirsted for revenge 
upon a man who had dared to affix his signature to a document which proclaimed 
the independence of America. Unfortunately, Mrs. Lewis fell into their power, and 
was retained a prisoner for several months. During her captivity she was closely 
confined, without even the comfort of a bed to lie upon, or a change of clothes. 

In November, 1776, the attention of Congress was called to her distressed condi- 
tion, and shortly after a resolution was passed that a lady, who had been taken pris- 
oner by the Americans, should be permitted to return to her husband, and that Mrs. 
Lewis be required in exchange. But the exchange could not at that time be effected. 
Through the influence of Washington, however, Mrs. Lewis was at length released ; 
but her sufferings during her confinement had so much impaired her constitution, 
that in the course of a year or two she sunk into the grave. 

Of the subsequent life of Mr. Lewis we have little to record. His latter days 
were spent in comparative poverty, his independent fortune having, in a great meas- 
ure, been sacrificed on the altar of patriotism dufing his country's struggle for inde- 
pendence. The life of this excellent man and distinguished patriot was extended to 
his ninetieth year. His death occurred on the 30th day of December, 1803. 



MASSASOIT. 

THIS renowned sachem was one of the principal Indian chiefs whom the pilgrim 
band of the May Flower found in possession when they landed at Plymouth, in 
1620. His first salutation was a friendly one, and he never withdrew his friendship 
from the whites. He was a mild and pacific prince, and ruled his great and rude 
people with a deep sagacity united to .a strong affection for them, and the manifesta- 
tion of a constant regard for their interests and happiness. 

Massasoit had several places of residence, the princi23al of which was Mount Hope, 
or Pokanoket^ near Bristol, Rhode Island, on the Narragansett Bay. He has been 
called, also, by a variety of names, as Woosamequin^ Asuhniequin^ Oosamequen^ 
Osamehin, Owsamequin, Owsamequine^ Ussamequen^ Wasamegin^ &c., &c. ; but 
Massasoit seems to have been the name he bore when the country was first occupied, 
and by which he has ever since been known in history. He was the chief of the 
Wampanoags. At first the Indians were ^■ery shy of the new-comers, but soon 
gained confidence, and a treaty of amity and commerce was established between 
them, by which the Puritans were preserved from utter ruin ; first, by the ravages of 
famine, and, secondly, by the treachery and ferocity of the surrounding tribes of In- 
dians. The personal appearance of this celebrated sachem is thus given by Governor 
Carver, in 1621 : " He is a very lusty man, in his best years, an able body, grave of 
countenance, and spare of speech ; in his attire little or nothing differing from the 
rest of his followers, only in a great chain of white bone beads about his neck ; and 
at it, behind his neck, hangs a little bag of tobacco, which he drank, and gave us to 
drink. His face was painted with a sad redJike murrey, and oiled both head and 
face, that he looked greasily. All his followers likewise were, in their faces, in part 
or in whole, painted, some black, some red, some yellow, and some white ; some with 
crosses and other antic works ; some had skins on them, and some naked ; all strong, 
tall men in appearance. The king had in his bosom, liangirg in a string, a great long 
knife. He marvelled much at our trumpet, and some of his men would sound it as 
well as they could." 

Through the influence of this kind-hearted chief a treaty of commerce was made, 
which resulted greatly to the interests of the colony. On that occasion he replied to 
some suggestion of fear that the Indians might not be willing to traffic freely : " Am 
I not Massasoit, commander of the country about us? Is not such and such places 
mine, and the people of them ? They shall take their skins to the English^ This 
his people applauded. In his speech, " he named at least thirty places," over which 
he had control. 

In 1623 Massasoit was dangerously ill, and sent for aid to his Plymouth friends, 
who at once responded to his summons, and sent Mr. "Winslow, with others, to min- 
ister to his necessities. " When we came thither," says Mr. Winslow, " we found 



250 MASS AS IT. 

the house so full of men, as we could scarce get in, though they used their best dili- 
gence to make way for us. There were they in the midst of their charms for him, 
making such a hellisli noise, as it distempered us that were well, and, therefore, unlike 
to ease him that was sick. About him were six or eight women, who chafed his arms, 
legs, and thighs, to keep heat in him. When they had made an end of their charm- 
ing, one told him that his friends, the English, were come to see him. Having im- 
derstanding left, but his sight was wholly gone, he asked, vjho was come. They told 
him Winsnow (for they cannot pronounce the letter Z, but ordinarily ii in the place 
thereof). He desired to speak with me. When I came to him, and they told him 
of it, he put forth his hand to me, which I took. Then he said twice, though very 
inwardly. Keen Wins7iow f which is to say. Art thou Winslow f ' I answered, Ahhe^ 
that is. Yes. Then he doubled these words : Matta neen wonckanet namen^ Wins, 
now ! — that is to say. Oh Winslow, I shall never see thee again .^" But contrary to 
his own expectations, as well as all his friends, by the kind exertions of Mr. Winslow, 
he in a short time entirely recovered. 

For this attention of the English he was very grateful, and always believed that 
his preservation at this time was owing to the benefit he received from Mr. Winslow. 
In his way on his visit to Massasoit, Mr. Winslow broke a bottle containing some 
preparation, and, deeming it necessary to the sachem's recovery, wrote a letter to the 
governor of Plymouth for another, and some chickens ; in which he gave him an 
account of his success thus far. The intention was no sooner made known to Massa- 
soit, than one of his men was sent oflP, at two o'clock at night, for Plymouth, who 
returned again witli astonishing quickness. The chickens being alive, Massasoit was 
so pleased with them, and, being better, would not suffer them to be killed, and kept 
them with the idea of raising more. While at Massasoit's residence, and just as they 
were about to depart, the sachem told Hoboinok of a plot laid by some of his subor- 
dinate chiefs for the purpose of cutting off the two English plantations, which he 
charged him to acquaint the English with, which he did. Massasoit stated that he 
had been urged to join in it, or give his consent thereunto, but had always refused, 
and used his endeavors to prevent it. 

The date of the death of this noble-minded chieftain is not precisely known, but it 
is generally supposed that it occurred about the year 1660-61, and supposing him to 
be about forty years old when he first met the English, it would make him not far 
from eighty years of age at the time of his death. 

We shall close this sketch by relating an anecdote, which exhibits a peculiar trait 
in Indian life. As Mr. Edward Winslow was returning from a trading voyage south- 
ward, having left his vessel, he travelled home by land, and in the way stopped with 
his old friend Massasoit, who agreed to accompany him the rest of the way ; in the 
mean time, Ousamequin sent one of his men forward to Plymouth, to surprise the 
people with the news of Mr. Winslow's death. By his manner of relating it, and 
the particular circumstances attending, no one doubted of its truth, and every one 
was grieved and mourned exceedingly at their great loss. But presently they were 
as much surprised at seeing him coming in company with Ousamequin. When it 
was known among the people that the sachem had sent this news to them, they de- 
manded why he should thus deceive them. He replied that it was to make him the 
more welcome when he did retm-n, and that this was a custom of his people. 



JAMES OGLETHORPE. 

JAMES OGLETHORPE, the founder of Georgia, was born in England about the 
year 1G88. Entering the army at an early age, he served nnder Prince Eugene, 
to whom he became secretary and aid-de-carap. On the restoration of peace he was 
returned a member of Parliament, and distinguished himself as a useful senator by 
proposing several I'egulations for the benefit of trade, and a reform in the prisons. 
His philanthropy is commemorated in Thomson's Seasons. His benevolence led 
him in 1732 to become one of the trustees of Georgia, a colony the design of whose 
settlement was principally to rescue many of the inhabitants of Great Britain from 
the miseries of poverty, to open an asylum for the persecuted Protestants of Europe, 
and to carry to the natives the blessings of Christianity. In the prosecution of this 
design Mr. Oglethorpe embarked in l!s^ovember with a number of emigrants, and 
arriving at Carolina in the middle of January, 1733, he proceeded immediately to the 
Savannah River, and laid the foundation of the town of Savannah. He made treaties 
with the Indians, and crossed the Atlantic several times to promote the interests of 
the colony. Being ajjpointed general and commander-in-chief of his majesty's forces 
in South Carolina and Georgia, he brought from England in 1738 a regiment of six 
hundred men to protect the southern frontiers from the Spaniards. A mutiny was 
soon excited in his camp, and a daring attempt was made to assassinate him ; but 
his life was wonderfully preserved, through the care of that Providence which controls 
all earthly agents and superintends every event. After the commencement of the 
war between Great Britain and Spain in 1739, he visited the Indians to secure their 
friendship, and in 1740 he went into Florida on an unsuccessful expedition against 
St. Augustine. As the Spaniards laid claim to Georgia, three thousand men, a part 
of whom were from Havana, were sent in 1742 to drive Oglethorpe from the fron- 
tiers. When this force proceeded up the Alatamaha, passing Fort St. Simon's with- 
out injury, he was obliged to retreat to Frederica. He had but about seven hundred 
men, besides Indians ; yet with a j)art of these he approached within two miles of 
the enemy's camp, with the design of attacking them by surprise, when a French 
soldier of his party fired his musket and ran into the Spanish lines. His situation 
was now very critical, for he knew that the deserter would make known his weakness. 
Returning, however, to Frederica, he had recourse to the following expedient. He 
wrote a letter to the deserter, desiring him to acquaint the Spaniards with the de 
fenceless state of Frederica, and to urge them to the attack ; if he could not efifect 
this object, he directed him to use all his art to persuade them to stay three days at 
Fort Simon's, as within that time he should have a reinforcement of two thousand 
land forces, with six ships of war ; cautioning him at the same time not to drop a hint 
of Admiral Yernon's meditated attack upon St. Augustine. A Spanish prisoner was 
Intrusted with this letter, under promise of delivering it to the deserter. But he gave 

17 



252 JAMES OGLETHORPE. 

it, as was expected and intended, to the commander-in-chief, who instantly put the 
deserter in irons. In the perplexity, occasioned by this letter, while the enemy was 
deliberating what measures to adopt, three ships of force, which the governor of 
South Carolina had sent to Oglethorpe's aid, ajDpeared off the coast. The Spanish 
commander was now convinced, beyond all question, that the letter, instead of being 
a stratagem, contained serious instructions to a spy, and in this moment of consteraa- 
tion set fire to the fort, and embarked so precipitately as to leave behind him a num- 
ber of cannon with a quantity of military stores. Thus by an event beyond human 
foresight or control, by the correspondence between the artful suggestions of a mili- 
tary genius and the blowing of the winds, was the infant colony jDrovidentially saved 
from destruction, and Oglethorpe retrieved his rej^utation and gained the character of 
an able general. He now returned to England, and never again revisited Georgia. 
In 1745 he was promoted to the rank of major-general, and was sent against the 
rebels, but did not overtake them, for which he was tried by a court-martial and hon- 
orably acquitted. After the return of Gage to England, in 1775, the command of the 
British army in America was offered to General Oglethorpe. He professed his read- 
iness to accept the appointment if the ministry would authorize him to assure the 
colonies that justice would be done them ; but the command was given to Sir William 
Howe. He died in August, 1785, at the age of ninety-seven, being the oldest general 
in the service. — All en'' s Biograjph. Diet. 



JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, D.D. 

JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, D. D., an eminent pliilosoplier, and v(^lnniin()ns writei", 
was born at Fieldhead, in Yorkshire, England, March 24, 1733. His father was 
a doth-dresser. At the age of nineteen he had acqnired in the schools, to which he 
had been sent, and by the aid of private instruction, a good knowledge of Greek, 
Latin, and Hebrew, French, Italian, and German ; he had also begun to ivad Arabic, 
and learned Chaldee and Syriac. With these attainments, and others in mathemat- 
ics, natural philosophy, and morals, he entered the academy of Daventry, under Dr. 
Ashworth, in 1752, with a view to the Christian ministry. Here he spent three 
years. The students were referred to books on both sides of every question, and re- 
quired to abridge the most important works. The tutors, Mr. Ashworth and Mr. 
Clark, being of different opinions, and the students being divided, subjects of dispute 
were continually discussed. He had been educated in Calvinism, and in early life 
he suffered great distress from not finding satisfactory evidence of the renovation of 
his mind b}^ the Spirit of God. He had great aversion to plays and romances. He 
attended a weekly meeting of young men for conversation and prayer. But before 
he went to the academy he became an Arminian, though he retained the doctrine of 
the trinity and of the atonement. At the academy he embraced Arianism. Perus- 
ing Hartley's observations on man, he was fixed in the belief of the doctrine of ne- 
cessity. In 1755 he became assistant minister to the indei3endent congregation of 
Needham Market, in Suffolk, upon a salary of forty pounds a year. Falling auder a 
suspicion of Arianism, he became pastor of a congregation at Nantwich, in Cheshire, 
in 1758, where he remained three years, being not only minister but schoolmaster. 
In 1761 he removed to Warrington, as tutor in the belles-lettres in the academy there. 
In 1767 he accepted the pastoral office at Leeds. Here by reading Lardner's letter 
on the Logos he became a Socinian. In 1773 he Avent to live with the Marquis of 
Lansdowne, as librarian or literary companion, with a salary of two hundred and 
fifty jDounds a year. During a connection of seven years with his lordship he visited, 
in his company, France, Holland, and some parts of Germany. He then became 
minister of Birmingham. At length, when several of his friends celebrated the 
French Revolution, July 14, 1791, a mob collected and set fire to the dissenting 
meeting-houses, and several dwelling-houses of dissenters, and among others to that 
of Dr. Priestley. He lost his library, apparatus, and papers, and was forced to take 
refuge in the metropolis. He was chosen to succeed Dr. Price at Hackney, and was 
a lecturer in the dissenting college of that place. But the public aversion to him 
being strong, and his sons emigrating to the United States, he followed them in April, 
1794. He settled at Northumberland, a town of Pennsylvania about one hundred 
and thirty miles northwest of Phdadelphia. In this city, for two or three winters 
after his arrival, he delivered lectures on the evidences of Christianity. In his last 



254 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, D.D. 

sickness he expressed his coincidence with Simpson on the duration of future punish- 
ment. He died in cahnness, and in the full vigor of his mind, February 6, 1804, in 
the seventy-first year of his age. He dictated some alterations in his manuscripts 
half an hour before his death. 

Dr. Priestley was amiable and affectionate in the intercourse of private and domes- 
tic life. Few men in modern times have written so much, or with such facility. 
His readiness with the pen he attributed, in a great degree, to the habit of writing 
down, in early life, the sermons which he heard at public worship. To superior abil- 
ities he joined industry, activity, dispatch, and method ; yet his application to study 
was not so great, as from the multitude of his works one would imagine, for he sel- 
dom spent more than six or eight hours in a day in any labor which required much 
mental exertion. A habit of regularity extended itself to all his studies. He never 
read a book without determining in his own mind when he would finish it ; and at 
the beginning of every year he arranged the jilan of his literary pursuits and scien- 
tific researches. He labored under a great defect, which, however, was not a very 
considerable impediment to his progress. He sometimes lost all ideas, both of persons 
and things, w^ith which he had been conversant. Once he had occasion to wnnte a 
piece respecting the Jewish passt)ver, in doing which he was obliged to consult and 
compare several writers. Having finished it, he threw it aside. In about a fortnight 
he performed this same labor again, having forgotten that he had a few days before 
done it. Apprised of this defect, he used to write down wha^ he did not wish to for- 
get, and by a variety of mechanical expedients he secured ana . .I'anged his thoughts, 
and derived the greatest assistance in writing large and complex works. By simple 
and mechanical methods, he did that in a mouth, which men of equal ability could 
hardly execute in a year. He always did immediately what he had to perform. 
Though he rose early and dispatched his more serious pursuits in the morning, yet he 
was as well qualified for mental exertion at one time of the day as at another. All 
seasons were equal to him, early or late, before dinner or after. He could also write 
without inconvenience by the ]3arlor fire with his wife and children about him, and 
occasionally talking to them. In his diary he recorded the progress of his studies, 
the occurrences of the day, &c. As a preacher Dr. Priestley was not distinguished. 
He had no powers of oratory. He was, however, laborious and attentive as a min- 
ister. He bestowed great jjains upon the young by lectures and catechetical in- 
structions. In his family he ever maintained the worship of God. As a schoolmaster 
and professor he was indefatigable. With respect to his religious sentiments his 
mind underwent a number of revolutions, but he died in the Socinian faith, which he 
had many years supported. He possesses a high reputation as a philosopher, partic- 
ularly as a chemist. Commencing his chemical career in 1Y72, he did more for 
chemistry in two years than had been done by any of his predecessors. He discov- 
ered the existence of vital or dephlogisticated air, the oxygen gas of the French 
nomenclature, and other kinds of aeriform fluids, and many methods of procuring 
them. He always adhered to the old doctrine of Stahl respecting phlogiston, though 
the whole scientific world had rejected it, and embraced the theory of Lavoisier. But 
his versatile mind could not be confined to one subject. He was not only a chemist 
but an eminent metai^hysician. He was a materialist and necessarian. He main- 
tained that all volitions are the necessary result of previous circumstances, the will 



JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, D.D. 255 

beino" always governed by motives; and yet he opposed the Calvinistic doctrine of 
predestination. Tlie basis of his necessarian theory was Hartley's observations on 
man. In order to escape the difficulty, which he supposed would arise from ascribing 
the existence of sin to the will of God, he embraced the system of optimism; he con- 
sidered all evil as resulting in the good of the whole and of each part ; he thought 
that all intelligent beings would be conducted through various degrees of discipline 
U> happiness. He wrote also upon jjolitics, and it was in consequence of his advo- 
cating republican sentiments, as well as of his religious opinions, that liis situation 
was rendered so unpleasant in England. He found it a convenient way of learning 
a science to undertake to teach it, or to make a book or treatise upon the particular 
subject of his studies. The chart of history used in France was much improved by 
him, and he invented the chart of biography, which is very useful. Of his numerous 
publications the following are the principal: a treatise on English grammar, 1761; 
on the doctrine of remission ; history of electricity, 1767; history of vision, light, and 
colors ; introduction to perspective, 1770 ; harmony of the evangelists ; catechisms ; 
address to masters of families on prayer ; experiments on air, 4 vols. ; observations 
on education ; lectures on oratory and criticism ; institutes of natural and revealed 
religion ; a reply to the Scotch metaphysicians, Reid, Oswald, and Beattie ; disqui- 
sitions on matter and spirit, 1777 ; history of the corruptions of Christianity ; letters 
to Bishop Newcome on the duration of Christ's ministry ; correspondence with Dr. 
Horseley ; history of early opinions concerning Jesus Christ, 4: vols., 1786 ; lectures 
on history and genc"^ policy ; answers to Paine and Yolney ; several pieces on the 
doctrine of philosophical necessity, in a controversy with Dr. Price ; discourses on 
the evidences of revealed religion, 3 vols. ; letters to a philosophical unbeliever ; dis- 
courses on various subjects. He also wrote many defences of Unitarianism, and con- 
tributed largely to the Theological Repository, which was published many years ago 
in England. After his arrival in this country he published a comparison of the insti- 
tutions of the Mosaic religion with those of the Hindoos ; Jesus and Socrates com- 
pared ; several tracts against Dr. Linn, who wrote against the preceding pamphlet ; 
notes on the Scri23tures, 4 vols.; history of the Christian church, 6 vols.; several 
pamphlets on philosophical subjects, and in defence of the doctrine of phlogiston. 
Dr. Priestley's life was published in 1806, in two volumes. The memoirs were writ- 
ten by himself to the year 1787, and a short continuation by his own hand brings 
them to 1795. — Allen''s B'trxj. Diet. 



JOHN REDMAN, M.I). 

DR. REDMAN, first president of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 
was born in that city, February 27, 1722. After finishing his preparatory edu- 
cation in the Rev. Mr. Tennent's academy, he entered upon the study of physic with 
Dr. John Kearsley, then one of the most respectable 2:)hysicians of Philadelphia. 
When he commenced the practice of his profession, he went to Bermuda, where he 
continued for several years. Thence he proceeded to Europe, for the purpose of per- 
fecting his accpuiintance with medicine. He lived one year in Edinburgh ; he at- 
tended lectures, dissections, and the hosijitals in Paris ; he was graduated at Leyden, 
in July, 1748 ; and after passing some time at Gray's Hospital he returned to Amer- 
ica, and settled in his native city, where he soon gained great and deserved celebrity. 
"When he was about forty years of age he was afflicted with an abscess in his liver, 
the contents of which were expectorated, and he was frequently confined by acute 
diseases ; yet he lived to a great age. In the evening of his life he withdrew from 
the labors of his profession ; but it was only to engage in business of another kind. 
In the year 1784 he was elected an elder of the second Presbyterian church, and the 
benevolent duties of this ofiice employed him and gave him delight. The death of 
his younger daughter in 1806 was soon succeeded by the death of his wife, with whom 
he had lived with uninterrupted harmony near sixty years. He himself died of an 
apoplexy, March 19, 1808, in the eighty-seventh year of his age. 

Dr. Redman was somewhat below the middle stature ; his complexion w^as dark, 
and his eyes uncommonly animated. In the former part of his life he possessed an 
irritable tempe]-, but his anger was transient, and he was known to make acknowledg- 
ments to his pupils and servants for a hasty expression. As a physician his principles 
were derived from the writings of Boerhaave, but his practice was formed by the 
rules of Sydenham. He considered a greater force of medicine necessary to cure 
modem American, than modern British diseases, and hence he was a decided friend 
to depletion in all the violent diseases of our country. He bled freely in the yellow 
fever of 1762, and threw the weight of his venerable name into the scale of the same 
remedy in the year 1793. In the diseases of old age he considered small and frequent 
bleedings as the first of remedies. He entertained a high opinion of mercury in all 
chronic diseases, and he gave it in the natural small-pox with the view of touching 
the salivary glands about the turn of the pock. He introduced the use of turpeth- 
mineral as an emetic in the gangrenous sore throat of 1764. Towards the close of his 
life he read the later medical writers, and embraced with avidity some of the modern 
opinions and modes of practice. In a sick-room his talents were peculiar. He sus- 
pended pain by his soothing manner, or chased it away by his conversation, which 
was occasionally facetious and full of anecdotes, or serious and instructing. He ^'as 



JOSEPH REDMAN, M. D. 257 

remarkably attached to all the members of his family. At the funeral of his brother, 
Joseph Kedman, in 1Y79, after the company were assembled he rose from his seat, 
and grasping the lifeless hand of his brother, he turned round to his children and 
other relations in the room, and addressed them in the following words : " I declare 
in the presence of God and of this company, that in the whole course of our lives no 
ano-ry word nor look has ever passed between this dear brother and me." He then 
kneeled down by the side of his coffin, and in the most fervent manner implored the 
protection and favor of God to his widow and children. He was an eminent Christian. 
While he was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, he thought humbly of himseli', 
and lamented his slender attainments in religion. His piety was accompanied by 
benevolence and charity. He gave liberally to the poor. Such was the cheerfulness- 
of his temper, that upon serious subjects he was never gloomy. He spoke often of 
death, and of the scenes which await the soul after its separation from the body, with 
perfect composure. He published an inaugural dissertation on abortion, 1748, and a 
defence of inoculation, 1759.— AJJen's Blog. Diet. 



WILLIAM TENNENT. 

ITTILLIAM TEKN'ENT, minister of Freehold, New Jersey, was born in Ireland, 
▼ ▼ June 3, 1705. He arrived in America when in the fourteenth year of his age. 
Having resolved to devote himself to the ministry of the Gospel, his intense applica- 
tion to the study of theology, under the care of his brother at New Brunswick, so im- 
paired his health as to bring on a decline. He became more and more emaciated, 
i"ill little hope of life was left. At length he fainted and aj^parently expired. The 
neighborhood were invited to attend his funeral on the next day. In the evening his 
physician, a young gentleman, who was his particular friend, returned to the town, 
and was afflicted beyond measure at the news of his death. Being told, that when 
ibe body was laid out a little tremor of the flesh under the arm had been perceived, 
he encouraged the hope that the powers of life had not yet departed. On examining 
fhe body he affirmed that he felt an unusual warmth, and had it restored to a warm 
bed, and the funeral delayed. All probable means were used to restore life, but the 
ihird day arrived, and the unintermitted exertions of the doctor had as yet been in 
vain. It was determined by the brother that the funeral should now take place ; but 
rhe physician requested a delay of one hour, then of half an hour, and finally of a 
ipiarter of an hour. As this last period was near expired, while he was endeavoring 
to soften the tongue, which he had discovered to be much swollen, by putting some 
ointment upon it with a feather, the body opened its eyes, gave a dreadful groan, and 
sunk again into apparent death. The efforts were now renewed, and in a few hours 
Mr. Tennent was restored to life. His recovery, however, was very slow ; all former 
ideas were for some time blotted out of his mind ; and it was a year before he was 
[jerfectly restored. To his friends he repeatedly stated, that after he had apparently 
expired he found himself in heaven, where he beheld a glory, which he could not de- 
scribe, and heard songs of praise before this glory, which were unutterable. He was 
ibout to join the throng, when one of the heavenly messengers said to him, " You 
must return to the earth." At this instant he groaned, and opened his eyes upon 
"his world. For three years afterwards the sounds which he had heard were not out 
»f his ears, and earthly things were in his sight as vanity and nothing. In October, 
1733, he was ordained at Freehold, as the successor of his brother, the Rev. John 
rennent. It was not long before his inattention to worldly concerns brought him into 
<lebt. In his embarrassment a friend from New York told him, that the only remedy 
was to get a wife. " I do not know how to go about it," was the answer. " Then I 
wiU undertake the business," said his friend; "I have a sister-in-law in the city, a 
prudent and pious widow." The next evening found Mr. Tennent in New York, and 
the day after he was introduced to Mrs. Noble. Being pleased with her appearance, 
when he was left alone with her he abruptly told her that he supposed she knew his 
errand, that neither his time nor inclination would suffer him to use much ceremony, 



WILLIAM TENNENT, 259 

and that if she pleased he would attend his charge on the next Sabbath, and return 
on Monday and be married. With some hesitation the lady consented ; and she 
proved an invaluable treasure to him. About the year 1744, when the faithful preach- 
ing of Mr. Tennent and Mr, John Rowland was the means of advancing, in a very 
remarkable degree, the cause of religion in New Jersey, the indignation and malice 
of those who loved darkness rather than light, and who could not quietly submit to 
have their false security shaken, was excited against these servants of God. There 
was at this time prowling through the country a noted man named Tom Bell. One 
evening he arrived at a tavern in Princeton, dressed in a parson's frock, and was im- 
mediately accosted as the Rev. Mr. Rowland, whom he much resembled. This mis- 
take was sufficient for him. The next day he went to a congregation in the county 
of Hunterdon, and declaring himself to be Mr. Rowland, was invited to preach on 
the Sabbath. As he was riding to church in the family wagon accompanied by his 
host on an elegant horse, he discovered, when he was near the church, that he had left 
his notes behind, and proposed to ride back for them on the fine horse. The proposal 
was agreed to, and Bell, after returning to the house and rifling the desk, made off 
with the horse. Mr. Rowland was soon indicted for the robbery, but it happened 
that on the very day on which the robbery was committed he was in Pennsylvania 
or Maryland, and this circumstance being proved by the testimony of Mr. Tennent 
and two other gentlemen, who accompanied him, the jury brought in a verdict of not 
guilty. Mr. Rowland could not again be brought before the court ; but the witnesses 
were indicted for wilful and corrupt perjury. The evidence was very strong against 
them, for many had seen the supposed Mr. Rowland on the elegant horse. Mr. Ten- 
nent employed Mr. John Coxe, an eminent lawyer, to conduct his defence. He went 
to Trenton on the day appointed, and there found Mr. Smith of New York, one of 
the ablest lawyers in America, and of a religious character, who had voluntarily 
attended to aid in his defence. He found also at Trenton his brother Gilbert, from 
Philadelphia, with Mr. Kinsey, one of the first counsellors in the city. Mr. Tennent 
was asked who were his witnesses ; he replied that he had none, as the persons who 
accompanied him were also indicted. He was pressed to delay the trial, as he would 
most certainly be convicted ; but he insisted that it should proceed, as he trusted in 
God to vindicate his innocence. Mr. Coxe was charging Mr. Tennent with actino- 
the part of an enthusiast, when the bell summoned them to court. The latter had not 
walked far in the street before he was accosted by a man and his wife, who asked 
him if his name was not- Tennent. The man said that he lived in a certain place in 
Pennsylvania or Maryland ; that Mr. Tennent and Mr. Rowland had lodged at his 
house, or at a house where he and his wife had been servants, at a particular time, 
and on the next day preached ; that some nights before he left home, he and his wife 
both dreamed repeatedly that Mr. Tennent was in distress at Trenton, and they only 
could relieve him; and that they, in consequence, had come to that town, and 
wished to know what they had to do. Mr. Tennent led them to the court-house, and 
their testimony induced the jury to bring in a verdict of not guilty, to the astonish- 
ment of his enemies. After a life of great usefulness, Mr. Tennent died at Freehold, 
March 8, 1777, aged seventy-one years. He was well read in divinity, and professed 
himself a moderate Calvinist. Tlie doctrines of man's depravity, the atonement of 
Christ, the necessity of the all-powerful influence of the Holy Spirit to renew the 



2{}() WILLIAM TEN NEXT. 

heart, in consistence with the free agency of the sinner, were among the leading ar- 
ticles of his faith. With his friends he was at all times cheerful and pleasant. He 
once dined in company with Governor Livingston and Mr. Whitfield, when the latter 
expressed the consolation he found in believing, amidst the fatigues of the day, that 
his work would soon be done, and that he should depart and be with Christ. He 
appealed to Mr. Tennent, whether that was not his comfort. Mr. Tennent replied, 
" What do you think I should say, if I was to send ni}^ man Tom into the field to 
plough, and at noon should find him lounging under a tree, complaining of the heat, 
and of his difiicult work, and begging to be discharged of his hard service ? What 
should I say ? Why, that he was an idle, lazy fellow, and that it was his business 
to do the work that I had appointed him." He was the friend of the poor. The 
public lost in him a firm asserter of the civil and religious rights of his country. 
Few men have ever been more holj^ in life, more submissive to the will of God under 
heavy afflictions, or more peaceful in death. An account which he wrote of the 
revival of religion in Freehold, and other places, is published in Prince's Chris 
tian History. — Allen''s Biog. Diet. 



GEORGE WALTON. 

GEORGE WALTON, the last of the Georgia delegation who signed the Declara- 
tion of Independence, was born in the county of Frederick, Virginia, about the 
year 1740. He was early apprenticed to a carpenter, who being a man of selfish and 
contracted views, not only kept him closely at labor during the day, but refused him 
the privilege of a candle, by wLich to read at night. 

Young Walton possessed a mind by nature strong in its j)Owers, and though un- 
cultivated, not having enjoyed even the advantages of a good scholastic education, he 
was ardently bent on the acquisition of knowledge ; so bent, that during the day, at 
his leisure moments, he would collect light wood, which served him at night instead 
of a candle. His application was close and indefatigable ; his acquisitions rapid and 
valuable. 

At the expiration of his apprenticeship he removed to the province of Georgia, 
and entered the office of a Mr. Young, with whom he pvirsued the preparatory studies 
of the jDrofession of law, and in 1774 he entered upon its duties. 

At this time the British government was in the exercise of full power in Geoi^gia. 
Both the governor and his council were firm supporters of the British ministry. It 
was at this period that George Walton, and other kindred spirits, assembled a meet- 
ing of the friends of liberty, at the liberty jpole^ at Tondee's tavern in Savannah, to 
take into consideration the means of preserving the constitutional rights and liberties 
of the peoj^le of Georgia, which were endangered by the then recent acts of the Brit- 
ish parliament. 

At this meeting Mr. Walton took a distinguished part. Others, also, entered with 
great warmth and animation into the debate. It was, at length, determined to invite 
the different parishes of the province, to come into a general union and co-operation 
with the other provinces of America to secure their constitutional rights and liberties. 

In opposition to this plan, the royal governor and his council immediately and 
strongly enlisted themselves, and so far succeeded by their influence as to induce an- 
other meeting, which was held in January, 1775, to content itself with preparing a 
petition to be presented to the king. Of the committee appointed for this purpose 
Mr. Walton was a member. The petition, however, shared the fate of its numerous 
predecessors. 

In Februar}^, 1775, the Committee of Safety met at Savannah. But notwithstand- 
ing that several of the members advocated strong and decisive measures, a majority 
were for pursuing, for the present, a temporizing policy. Accordingly, the committee 
adjourned without concerting any plan for the appointment of delegates to the Con- 
tinental Congress. This induced the people of the parish of St. John to separate, in 
a degree, from the provincial government, and to appoint Mr. Hall a delegate to rep- 
resent them in the national legislature. 



262 GEORGE W ALTON. 

In the month of July, 1775, the convention of Georgia acceded to the general con- 
federacy, and five delegates, Lyman Hall, Archibald Bullock, John Houston, John 
J. Zubly, and ]S"oble W. Jones, were elected to repi'esent the State in Congress. 

In the month of Februarj^, 1776, Mr. Walton was elected to the same honorable 
station, and in the following month of October was re-elected. From this time, until 
October, 1781, he continued to represent the State of Georgia at the seat of govern- 
ment, where he displayed much zeal and intelligence in the discharge of the various 
duties which were assigned him. He was jsarticularly nseful on a committee, of 
which Robert Morris and George Clymer were his associates, apjjointed to transact 
important continental business in Philadelphia, during the time that Congress was 
obliged to retire from that city. 

In December, 1778, Mr. "Walton received a colonel's commission in the militia, 
and was present at the surrender of Savannah to the British arms. During the ob- 
stinate defence of that place Colonel Walton was wonnded in the thigh, in consequence 
of which he fell from his horse, and was made a prisoner by the British troops. A 
brigadier-general was demanded in exchange for him ; but in September, 1779, he was 
ej^changed for a captain of the navy. 

In the following month Colonel Walton was appointed governor of the State; and 
in the succeeding January was elected a member of Congress for two years. 

The subsequent life of Mr. Walton was filled up in the discharge of the most re- 
spectable offices within the gift of the State. In what manner he was appreciated by 
the people of Georgia, may be learnt from the fact that he was at six different times 
elected a representative to Congress ; twice appointed governor of the State ; once a 
senator of the United States ; and at four different periods a judge of the superior 
courts, which last office he held for fifteen years, and until the time of his death. 

It may be gathered from the foregoing, respecting Mr. Walton, that he was no 
ordinary man. He rose into distinction by the force of his_ native powers. In his 
temperament he was ardent, and by means of his enthusiasm in the great cause of 
liberty, rose to higher eminence, and secured a greater share of public favor and con- 
fidence than he would otherwise have done. 

Mr. Walton was not without his faults and weaknesses. He was accused of a 
degree of pedantry, and sometimes indulged his satirical powers beyond the strict 
rules of propriety. He was perhaps, also, too contemptuous of public opinion, 
especially when that opinion varied from his own. 

The death of Mr. Walton occurred on the second day of February, 1801. During 
the latter years of his life, he suffered intensely from frequent and long-continued 
attacks of the gout, which probably tended to undermine his constitution, and to 
hasten the event of his dissolution. He had attained, however, to a good age, and 
closed his life, happy in having contributed his fall share towards the measure of his 
country's glory. 



\ 



ROGER WILLIAMS. 

THE name of Roger Williams is a shibboleth to religions liberty. His was one of 
the first minds in America capable of grasping the enlarged idea, " that no man 
was accountable to his fellow-man, either in Church or State, for his religious opinions ;" 
and he boldly declared the same in the teeth of his church, and defended it asainst 
the ablest teachers and rulers in the Colonies. For this lie suffered all manner of 
persecution, and was at length banished from civilized society, and driven foi'th into 
the wilderness to solicit charity at the hands of the savages, whom he found more 
tolerant and merciful than his Christian brethren. 

In his lonely march and shelterless bivouacs in that dark forest, with the faithful 
few who were ready to share his exile, how little did he dream that he was the sower 
of a seed which should spring up and grow into a mighty tree, destined to overshadow 
the institutions of a wide-reaching republic, and that millions on millions of freemen 
should rise up and call him blessed, and countless voices pronounce his name with 
love and veneration. 

He was " under the cloud," as all men were in that early dawning of religious free- 
dom, and held, pertinaciously enough it must be confessed, opinions which will not 
bear the scrutiny of these days of increased light and learning ; but that great 
idea which alone found a resting-place in his pure mind, is a mantle broad enough 
to cover all, and more than all, his errors and his faults. 

Penetrated with the devout idea that he was under the charge and direction of 
"Him in whom he believed," he called the spot he selected for his resting-place 
Providence, never doubting he had been led thither by an invisible Hand. Here he 
built up his church in the free spirit of toleration, and to it flocked from every quarter 
of the Colonies the j^ersecuted of all shades of opinion. And here all found a Chris- 
tian welcome. Jews, Turks, Papists, and Protestants of every belief were allowed 
not only to cherish but to promulgate their faith and practise their worship, so long 
as they interfered with no other man's freedom, and violated none of the civil 
obligations. 

In 1G56, when the other colonies of Kew England united in measures for tlie pre- 
vention of the further spread of Quakerism, the colonj^ of Phjde Island was solicited 
to join the wicked confederacy. Their noble answer — which showed huw truly the 
leaven of its tolerant founder had wrought into the whole lump of the body-politic — 
deservee to be written in characters of living light in the firmament : "We shall 

STRICTLY ADHERE TO THE FOUNDATION PRINCIPLES ON WHICH THIS COLONY WAS FIRST SET- 
TLED : TO WIT, THAT EVERY MAN WHO SUBMITS PEACEABLY TO THE CIVIL AUTHORITY, MAY 
PEACEABLY WORSHIP GoD ACCORDING TO THE DICTATES OF HIS CONSCIENCE WITHOUT MO- 
LESTATION." 



264 ROGER WILLIAMS. 

Little is known of the early life of Williams, save that he was a remarkably stu- 
dious and religious lad. He used to take notes of the discourses to which he listened 
at an early age. Sir Edward Coke, the eminent lawyer, detected him in this, one 
Sunday, and sent for him to his pew. After much persuasion, he overcame the nat- 
ural timidity of the youth and prevailed upon him to let him look on his notes. Sir 
Edward was so struck with their correctness, and the judgment manifested in the 
selection of passages in the discourse, that he took the boy into his care and office, 
where he prepared himself to be a lawyer. But his religious turn of mind led him to 
change his views, and he afterwards turned his whole mind and soul to the study of 
divinity. lie became eminent both for his scholarship and piety, and soon after com- 
mencing his ministry joined the Puritans, and emigrated to this country in 1631. 

His brilliant talents and solid learning soon attracted the attention of the churches. 
He was invited by the church at Salem to become assistant to Mr. Shelton, but the 
civil authorities not approving, he accepted a call from the Plymouth church, from 
whence, after two or three years' residence, he removed to Salem ; from which place, 
as we have seen, he was banished on account of heresy. 

His influence with the Indians was unbounded, and it was owing solely to his in- 
tervention that the l^arragansetts were prevented from leaguing with the Pequots in 
" the terrible Pequot War," and brought, instead, into alliance, defensive and offensive, 
with the English. This alliance doubtless proved the salvation of the colonies in 
ISTew England. 

Roger Williams lived to see his principles become a fact, and his fond dreams a 
reality, and went to his grave at the great age of eighty, respected and loved by mul- 
titudes both of English and Indians, and leaving a name to be cherished and vener- 
ated by all lovers of religious freedom in all coming ages of the world. 



JOHN WINTHROP. 

JOHN WmTHROP, LL.D.,F.R.S.,a distinguished philosopher and astronomer, 
was graduated at Harvard College, in 1Y32. In 1738 he succeeded Mr. Green- 
wood as Hollis professor of mathematics and natural philosophy, and was more 
eminent for his scholarship than any other man in New England. In mathematical 
science he was considered as the first during the forty years he continued the profes- 
sor at Cambridge University. In the year 1740 he made observations upon the 
transit of Mercury, which were printed in the transactions of the Royal Society. 

In the year 1761 he sailed to St. Johns, in Newfoundland (as it was the most 
western part of the earth), to observe the transit of Yenus over the sun's disk, as it 
was an object with the literati to have observations made in that place. The sixth of 
June was a fine day to observe the transit of the planet, and he gained high reputa- 
tion when these observations were published. In 1769 he had another opportunity 
of observing the transit of Yenus at Cambridge. As it was the last opportunity that 
generation could be favored with, he was desirous to arrest the attention of the peo- 
ple. He read two lectures upon the subject in the college chapel, which he after- 
wards published, with this motto upon the title-page : " Agite mortales ! et oculos in 
spectaculum vertite, quod hucusce spectaverunt perpaucissimi ; spectaturi iterum 
sunt nulli." 

He received literary honors from other countries besides his own. The Royal So- 
ciety of London elected him a member, and the University of Edinburgh gave him a 
diploma of LL. D. 

In 1767 he wrote Cogitata de Cometis^ which he dedicated to the Royal Society. 
This was reprinted in London the next year. The active services of Dr. Winthrop 
were not confined to his duties of professorship at Cambridge. He was a brilliant 
star in our political hemis^ihere. The family of the Winthrops had always been dis- 
tinguished for their love of freedom and the charter rights of the colonies. When 
Great Britain made encroachment upon these, by oppressive acts of parliament, after 
the peace of Paris in 1763, he stepped forth among those who boldly opposed the 
measures of the crown. After having been a professor for more than forty years, he 
died at Cambridge, May 3, 1779, in the sixty -fifth year of his age. Dr. "Winthrop 
was an excellent classical scholar, and also a biblical critic. The learned Dr. Chaun- 
cey always spoke of him as one of the greatest theologians he ever met with. In the 
variety and extent of his knowledge he has seldom been equalled. He was critically 
acquainted with several of the modern languages of Europe. He had deeply studied 
the policies of different ages ; he had read the principal Fathers ; and he was thor- 
oughly acquainted with the controversy between Christians and Deists. His firm 
faith in the Christian religion was founded upon an accurate examination of the evi- 
dences of its truths, and the virtues of his life added a lustre to liis intellectual power 
and scientific attainments. 






VOLUME II. 



PART I. 



EMBRACING THE PERIOD FROM THE 

DISCOVERY BY COLUMBUS, 



TO THE 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 




FERDINAND THE CATHOLIC. 



THIS illustrious prince and patron of American discovery was born at Sos, in 
Arragon, on the 10th of March, 1452, and was the son of John II. of Arragon. 
His mother, Joan, was the second wife of John, and daughter of Don Frederic 
Henriquez, admiral of Castile, a woman of an imperious temper, proud and am- 
bitious, of consummate address, and far from scrupulous in the means used for 
obtaining her ends. 

On the death of Carlos, a son by the first marriage of John, in 1461, Ferdinand, 
then only ten years of age, was duly installed by the usual oaths and ceremonies, 
as the heir apparent to the crown. This occurred at one of the stormiest periods 
of Spanish history, and the youthful prince commenced his career, which was des- 
tined to be one of almost uninterrupted prosperity, in a very whirlwind of political 
disorganization and anarchy. 

When the beautiful and gentle Isabella was besieged with suitors from almost 
every court in Christendom, Ferdinand entered the lists for the honor of her hand, 
and found favor in her sight. Besides the motives suggested by her own heart, — 
for Ferdinand was in the bloom of life, noble, handsome in person, and in mind 
intelligent and cultivated, — it seemed a wise policy to unite the fortunes and des- 



270 FERDINAND THE CATHOLIC 

tinies of Arragon and Castile, composed, as they were, of people of a coiiiiiion 
stock, speaking the same tongue, living under institutions of a similar nature, and 
lying in near proximity to each other. The marriage ceremony was performed on 
the 16th of October, 1469, with great pomp, although such was the poverty of the 
parties that they had to borrow the money necessary to defray the expenses of the 
wedding. 

On the 13th of December, 1474, Isabella was proclaimed Queen of Castile, and 
the crown settled jointly on Ferdinand and herself; and thus commenced one of the 
most prosperous reigns of the olden monarchies. He was bold, sagacious, prompt 
in action, and violent in his measures ; she, prudent and gentle, yet courageous and 
bold when once she put her hand to any undertaking. 

We pass over twenty years of the reign of these sovereigns, as not relevant to 
the matter in hand, and come down to 1492, the period of Columbus's first voyage 
of discovery under their patronage. From the first, Isabella looked with favor on 
the project of discoveries ; her religious heart yearning with the desire of bringing 
the heathen tribes of the western world under the benign influence of Christianity. 
Ferdinand, on the other hand, seeing no political advantages to accrue from such 
an expensive and doubtful outlay, opposed every thing of the kind. But the firm- 
ness of Isabella prevailed, she declaring that " she would assume the undertaking 
for her own crown of Castile, and was ready to pawn her own jewels to pay the 
expenses, if the funds of the treasury should be inadequate to it." Thus Columbus 
was sent on his glorious way by the gracious hand of the devout Isabella. 

When the success of Columbus came to be known at the court of Castile, the 
wily Ferdinand became vociferous in his praise of, and lavish in the bestowment of 
favors upon, the world's favorite. And this continued so long as success attended 
the hardy admiral. But no sooner did misfortunes and reverses overwhelm him 
than the king grew cold, and treated him with the most cruel neglect. Up to the 
hour of her death Isabella was the unfailing friend and patron of Columbus ; bui 
on her decease he was treated with the most perfidious injustice and cruelty. His 
just claims were denied, his repeated and earnest petitions neglected, and he was 
left by the heartless king to perish in poverty and obscurity. 

Not only did Columbus lose his guiding star in Isabella's death, but the fickle and 
perfidious king lost, also, his best and safest counsellor ; and during the remnant of 
his reign he led a troubled and unhappy life ; and when the hour of death came to 
him, it found him cheerless, hopeless, and tormented with many regrets for the past 
and fears for the future. He expired on the morning of the 23d of January, 1516, 
in the sixty-fifth year of his age. 




ISABELLA OF CASTILE. 

ISABELLA, the queen of Ferdinand the Catholic, was the daughter of John II. 
of Castile, and was born on the 22d of April, 1451, at Madrigal. Her child- 
hood was passed at court under the care of her mother, with whom, at sixteen she 
retired to the little town of Arevalo, where her religious character seems to have 
been formed under the pious culture of that judicious parent. Here were laid the 
foundations of that pure and religious life, which afterwards shone so conspicuously 
amidst the corruptions of the licentious -court of Castile. 

As Isabella grew to womanhood her exceeding grace and beauty, as well as her 
near relationship to the crown, attracted the attention of many gentlemen, and her 
hand was solicited by the first nobles and princes of the land. At an early age she 
was betrothed to the grand master of Calatrava. This union was every way 
unsuitable and disgusting to ^he fair Isabella. She was, however, relieved, by his 
sudden death, from the mortifying alliance. 

A period of civil dissension and war succeeded the death of the grand master, 
durin- which Alfonso, who wielded the sceptre of Castile, died. On his death the 
crown was offered to Isabella ; but she declined it. There were at this time numer- 
ous suitors to her hand, among whom was also Ferdinand of Axragon, whose suit 



272 ISABELLA OF CASTILE. 

ehe favored, and to wliom she was mamed on the 16th of October, 1469, and on 
the 13th of December, 1474, having yielded to the persuasions of her family, she was 
publicly crowned Queen of Castile ; and the crown, after much angry discussion, 
was settled on them both, with joint and separate powers. At first Ferdinand was 
dissatisfied that the prerogatives were not all his own, but was soothed and concili- 
ated by his royal spouse, who told iiim that the distribution of power was rather 
nominal than real ; that his will was hers ; that they had but one interest, etc. 

We will not follow the turbulent reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, in which the 
imperious and selfish spirit of the king was checked and ennobled by the sweet 
temper and calm judgment of his beautiful consort, as it would be foreign to our 
purpose ; and we come immediately to the period when their patronage was be- 
stowed upon the great discoverer of America. 

The discovery of the western continent, with the blessings which have resulted 
from it, is due to Isabella more than to all other persons. She alone of all the 
powers of Europe took Columbus under her patronage, and she never withdrew it 
while she lived ; and this after Columbus had in vain sought the aid of the other 
and more powerful courts of Europe, and the patronage of her own husband was 
withheld. Under all his vicissitudes, Columbus found the queen unfaltering in her 
friendship, and ready to espouse his cause when all Christendom mocked her pro- 
tege and called her fidelity folly. And when, at length, the colonies were success- 
fully established in the new world, they continued to receive her fostering care and 
generous protection. 

The personal appearance of Isabella is thus described by the Spanish writers of 
that time : " She was somewhat above the middle size ; complexion fair ; hair of a 
bright chestnut color, inclining to gold ; eyes blue, and beaming with intelligence 
and sensibility ; exceedingly beautiful, and of the most gracious address." 

In the early part of the year 1504, it became apparent that the health of the 
queen was rapidly failing. This was the result of her great mental and physical 
activity, and severe domestic bereavements. Her son, and heir to the crown, died 
in the prime of youth, and her best beloved daughter, the gentle Queen of Portugal, 
soon followed him to the tomb. Another daughter, Joanna, now heir to the crown, 
became mad, and by her insane and disgraceful conduct greatly aggravated the illness 
and unhappiness of her mother. But she soon found peace in the grave. On the 
26th of November, of the same year, she calmly and gently yielded up her breath 
to the destroyer and her soul to God. " And thus," says ,Peter Martyr, " the 
world lost its noblest ornament." " For," he adds, " she was the mirror of every 
virtue, the shield of the innocent, and the avenging sword to the wicked." 




VERAZZANO. 



GIOVANNI VERAZZANO was born in Florence, about the year 1490. Of 
his early years history is utterly silent ; and however pleasing it might be to 
trace the young footsteps of this early and skilful navigator, we must content ourself 
with having the veil drawn before his history. On the discovery of the new world by 
that renowned captain, Christopher Colunibus, under the patronage of the Castilian 
court, every government in Europe became eager to share the glory of discovery as 
well as the acquisition of territory in the western hemisphere. While the matter in- 
volved uncertainty there was an almost universal reluctance to engage in the risk, and 
toil, and expense. But no sooner had the golden visions of Columbus been reaUzed, 
and the report of his splendid achievement spread over the civilized world, than there 
were found many ready to embark their wealth and engage in any enterprise relating 
to the new world. 

Charles V. had aheady secured krge and rich possessions on the shores on which 
the Spaniards first landed, and Emanuel had successfully sent his fleet across the 
Atlantic, when Francis I., inspired with a like zeal to share in the golden spoils, fitted 
out a fleet of four sail, and placing it under the charge of Verazzano, sent him to- 



274 VERAZZANO. 

wards the setting snn in quest of lands yet undiscovered and washed by waters which 
no civilized keel had ploughed. Accordingly, early in the sixteenth century, he set 
sail for America, but, baffled by unusual and protracted storms, he was compelled to 
return to the disappointed Francis with the report of his ill success. Nothing daunt- 
ed, however, by this disastrous beginning, he was ordered to refit and proceed once 
more to sea. 

Meanwhile Verazzano was employed on the Spanish coast until his armament 
should be ready to sail. At last the anchors of the Dolphin, his flag ship, were 
weighed, and he once more turned his prow westward across the wide waste of the 
Atlantic. His voyage was one of almost continued tempest, and his shattered bark 
came near perishing, when, about the middle of March, the joyous cry of " Land, ho"! 
was shouted from the masthead. In a moment the whole scene was changed. The 
sailors, who just before were nearly frantic with despair, were now almost mad with 
joy, and hope once more animated their despairing bosoms. 

The land first discovered by Verazzano is generally supposed to be the coast of 
South Carolina, south of Cape Hatteras. Thence he cruised southward fifty leagues 
in search of a harbor, but finding none he retraced his steps, and passing the cape he 
came to Chesapeake Bay, where he landed and had friendly intercourse with the 
natives. After rest and repairs, he once more weighed anchors and cruised to the 
north, as far as the mouth of the Hudson, which he explored for several leagues in 
boats. He landed in several places, and was enchanted witli the country, now clad 
in its summer vestment of emerald and roses. From thence he sailed along the 
coast, which now trended to the east and north, as far as Newfoundland, visiting all 
the important points on the way, Martha's Vineyard, Cape Cod, Cape Ann, Labra- 
dor, and Cape Breton. His provisions being nearly exhausted, he now determined 
to return to France, and set sail accordingly in the winter of 1524-25. 

Up to this point the history of Verazzano is clear, but obscurity seems to rest upon 
the remainder of his life. From Dieppe he wrote to his patron, giving a description 
of his discoveries and recommending colonization. But Francis was occupied with 
more urgent demands, and the disastrous battle of Pavia put a period to his plans 
for colonizing the lands discovered by his captain, even if he had entertained them 
before. It seems, however, that he made another voyage of discovery, and while en- 
gaged in it perished by the hands of the savages, while confiding too trustingly to 
their friendship. This catastrophe occurred off Cape Breton, probably, in the sum- 
mer of 1525, although some accounts represent him as alive as late as 1537. 




SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. 



WHEN a great man has figured in the world, a certain class of biographers 
take infinite pains to trace his pedigree to some high or noble lineage ; as if 
the man's own gallant acts and noble deeds were not the highest and proudest 
heraldry to his name. Attempts of this kind have been made in the case of the 
brave navigator whose name stands at the head of this article. But the truth must 
be told that Francis Drake was the eldest of twelve sons of a humble mariner, 
nearly all of whom pursued the vocation of their father. He was born in England 
in the year 1541, and after enjoying a few stinted opportunities for the acquisition 
of knowledge, under the patronage of Sir John Hawkins, a distant relative of his 
father, was, at a very lender age, apprenticed to the captain of a vessel trading to 
France and Zealand. 

It was here that young Drake acquired that nautical skill which rendered nim 
such a famous navigator in after years. His diligence and his ready and cheerful 
obedience so won on his master, that, dying when Drake was but seventeen, he . 
bequeathed to him his vessel and all its appurtenances. At eighteen he was made 
purser of a ship trading to Biscay, and at twenty he joined the squadron of Captain 
John Hawkins, then engaged in the slave trade. During this voyage collisions took 

2 



276 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. 

place between the fleet and a Spanish squadron, which resulted in a long and bloody 
war, and served to fix in the breast of Drake a most deadly hate for the whole Span- 
ish race. It was this hatred which led him to these western shores. He fitted out 
a squadron for the purpose of attacking the Spanish possessions in the West In- 
dies, and while on this expedition, in crossing the isthmus, he had sight of the 
Pacific, from the point whence Vasco Nunes first discovered it. 

The sight of this ocean fired " the great captain " with an insatiable desire to 
plough its placid surface with the keels of his own ships ; and shortly after his 
return home, under the patronage of his queen, he sailed in the track of his prede- 
cessor, Magellan, to explore the vast regions of the Pacific. With infinite labor 
and much suffering he passed the coast of Patagonia and the dangerous shallows, 
rocks and currents of the straits, and came at length fairly upon the bosom of the 
broad Pacific. Intent on finding the long-sought-for north-west passage, Drake 
determined to seek it by this new route, and concentrated all his energies to the 
accomplishment of this great purpose. Accordingly he crossed the Pacific in a 
north-westerly direction, until the severity of the season and the failure of his 
supplies compelled him once more to turn his prow homeward, whither, after innu- 
merable hardships, he arrived in safety, and covered with gloiy. 

On the 4th of April, 1581, Queen Elizabeth visited his flagship, the " Golden 
Hind," and after eulogizing his exploits in presence of the brave company swarm- 
ing her decks, conferred on him the honor of knighthood, declaring " that his actions 
did him more honor than the title." He now becanie "the pet of England." He 
had brought immense wealth to his mistress ; he had added renown to the English 
flag ; he had made rare and rich discoveries in the southern seas ; he had performed 
many a brave exploit, and won for himself the name of hero. 

The remainder of Sir Francis Drake's history belongs to England. From this 
time to the day of his death, he is the great British Nelson of the Elizabethan age, 
and his battles on the seas and his assaults on towns and castles afford the theme 
of song and panegyric, as well as solid matter for more sober history. 

The death of Drake occurred on shipboard, while his fleet lay at anchor oft Porto 
Bello, on the 28th of January, 1596. His age was fifty-five. He was of a low stature, 
broad and compact, with a face of great intelligence and firmness. Few men have 
done more for England. He opened new sources of trade, and added vast wealth 
to science. He acquired many broad acres to English rule, and millions to t^e Brit- 
ish treasury. He sat in two Pariiaments. His benevolence was equal to his wealth, 
which was great. He married the daughter and sole heiress of Sir George Syden- 
ham, of Coombe Sydenham, who survived him. He never had any children, and 
bequeathed his riches and his title to his nephew, Francis Drake. 




SIR AVALTER RALEIGH. 



THIS, noble, great, and good man, whose persevering and enlightened efforts in the 
colonization of America did more than those of any other man, and who de- 
serves a statue of brass, — although even that could not make his memory or liis fame 
more indestructible than it aheady is, — was born at Hayes, a small town on the 
coast of Devonshire, in 1552. At an early age he was sent to Oxford, and entered 
Oriel College, where he exhibited a taste for the wild and romantic rather than the 
sober pursuit of literature. His young breast had been fired with the gallant deeds 
of the old Spanish cavaliers, and the stories of their conquests in the new world ex- 
cited his enthusiasm to the highest pitch. Whether he regularly concluded his course 
of studies at Oxford, or left in disgust before the period allotted for his degree had 
expired, we are not informed. 

At the age of seventeen, Raleigh made one of a troop of a hundred gentlemen 
volunteers whom Queen EUzabeth permitted to go to France, under the command 
of Henry Champeron, for the service of the Protestant princes. He next served in 
the Netherlands ; and, on his return from the continent, his half-brother. Sir Hum- 
phrey Gilbert, having obtained a grant of lands in North America, he in company 
with a number of gentlemen engaged to go out to Newfoundland ; but the expe- 
dition proving unsuccessful, Sir Walter returned to England, af^er being exposed to 



278 SIR .7 ALTER RALEIGH. 

several dangers. He was next sent to Ireland to quell the insurgents, where his 
bravery and martial skill attracted the attention of Elizabeth, who rewarded his gal- 
lantry by giving him permission to prosecute his favorite plan of settling a colony in 
America, which he named Virginia, in honor of his maiden sovereign ; at the same 
time she furnished him with men and supplies. On his return he first introduced 
tobacco and potatoes into England. In the mean time, the queen conferred on him 
the distinction of knighthood, and rewarded him by several lucrative grants, includ- 
ing a large share of the forfeited Irish estates. 

Sir Walter was engaged with the English in the memorable battle with the Span- 
ish Armada, which resulted so disastrously to that invading force. Soon after he was 
made gentleman of the privy chamber. About this time he published an atheistical 
tract, which brought him into disgrace, and he was shut up in the Tower for several 
months. He was accused, also, of a clandestine attachment to one of the maids of 
honor, the daughter of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, to whom he was afterward honor- 
ably married. 

After his release, Sir Walter attempted the discovery of Guiana, in South America, 
but returned to England unsuccessful. He engaged in the great expedition to Cadiz, 
and by several acts of prudent courage succeeded in restoring himself completely to 
the favor of Elizabeth. On her death his star went down. Her successor, James I., 
suffered his ears to be filled with many false accusations, which the enemies of- Ra- 
leigh were diligent in bringing forward. Among other things, he was accused of car- 
rying on a secret correspondence with the King of Spain. He was arraigned and 
tried for the crime of high treason, and being found guilty by the basest means, 
was condemned to the block. He was however reprieved, but held a prisoner for 
twelve years in the Tower. At length he was released, and after some service ren- 
dered to his king, he was again arraigned and ordered to execution. He suffered on 
the 29th of October, 1618, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. The last scene of 
his earthly career is thus described : — 

" Raleigh's conduct, while on the scaffold, was extremely firm. The morning being 
sharp, the sheriff offered to bring him down off the scaffold to warm himself by the 
fire before he should say his prayers. ' No, good Mr. Sheriff,' said he, ' let us de- 
spatch ; for within this quarter of an hour my ague will come upon me, and if I be 
not dead before that, mine enemies will say I quake for fear.' He then made ' a 
most divine and admirable prayer ; ' after which, rising up and clasping his hands to- 
gether, he exclaimed, ' Now I am going to God ! ' The executioner now came for- 
ward, and, kneeling, asked his forgiveness, upon which Raleigh laid his hand smilingly 
on his shoulder, and bade him be satisfied, for he most cheerfully forgave him, only 
entreating him not to strike till he himself gave the signal, and then to fear nothing, 
and strike home. Saying this, he lay down on the block, and on being directed to 
place himself so that his face should look to the east, he answered, ' It mattered Httle 
how the head lay, provided the heart was right.' After a little while, during which it 
was observed, by the motion of his lips and hands, that he was occupied in prayer, 
he gave the signal ; but, whether from awkwardness or agitation, the executioner de- 
layed ; upon which, after waiting for a short time, Raleigh partially raised his head, 
and said aloud, ' What dost thou fear ? Strike, man ! ' The axe then descended, and 
at two strokes the head was severed from the body, which never shrunk or altered its 
position.'' 




FEEDINAND DE SOTO. 



THIS gallant cavalier, the discoverer of the mighty Mississippi, v^'^as born in 
Castile near the close of the fifteenth century. He was early devoted to 
arms and taught the trade of war. When the gallant Pizarro summoned the nobles 
of Spain to enlist under his banner for a war of conquest, among the chivalry of that 
chivalrous nation who rushed to the standard of that renowned warrior was the 
proud subject of this memoir. Belonging to an ancient family of the grandees, he 
held a high rank under "the great captain," and aided in the conquest of Peru. 
This romantic and successful expedition teemed with gallant exploits and wonderful 
deeds, mixed up with inconceivable suffering. The respective acts of these old 
steel-hearted cavaliers would each fill a volume ; and when an army of such redoubt- 
able knights put forth their prowess, under the well-ordered courage of some invincible 
captain of war, nothing could resist its onset. 

After an inconceivable amount of suffering and toil, in which many a hauhgty sol- 
dier bit the dust, Pizarro subjugated these people of the sim — subjecting their idolized 
sovereign to great indignity and cruelty, extorting immense sums of gold and jewels 
as a purchase of their lives and freedom. As a reward for the services rendered in 
this ever-memorable expedition, Pizarro confen-ed on his faithful lieutenant the gov- 



280 FERDINAND DE SOTO. 

ernorship of the Island of Cuba. His history as the ruler of these simple-minded 
Indians is that of all the governors appointed to the districts of the new world, and 
is to be written in one word — Avarice. Instead of wisely training the proprietors 
of the soil to the true development of its gi-eat wealth, — as might easily have been 
done, for they were a docile and peace-loving race, — he treated them with great 
cruelty and injustice, robbing their temples, plundering them of their wealth, and sub- 
jecting them and their religious rites to gi-eat indignity and even outrage. 

But the resources of the richest country, under such a system of government, will 
ultimately fail ; and soon Cuba, spoiled of its wealth, could no longer afford the 
means of gi'atification to Spanish cupidity and grasping selfishness. And so De 
Soto was determined to seek a new and richer field in which to thrust in his remorse- 
less sickle. He had heard of wealth in " the land of flowers," of which there was 
no end, and in 1539 he landed with an army of twelve hundred men upon the coast 
of Florida, in search of this fancied region of exhaustless treasure. With incredible 
labor and suffering, which would have stayed the progress of any one not seeking 
gold, they penetrated far into the country in every direction, but without discovering 
orreat object of their search. They found the richest fruits, the choicest flowers, 
anv_ * soil teeming with an unwrought wealth, and only waiting the magic touch to 
bring it forth ; but gold they found none I 

Thus nearly two years were wasted in the vain search after " the root of all evil." 
The army of De Soto had dwindled to a mere handful ; but still he prosecuted the 
great purpose of the expedition, hopeful under all discouragements. But, in the 
spring of 1541, De Soto made the discovery of that father of rivers, the mighty Mis- 
sissippi, by which he has rendered his fame immortal, and without which accident 
his name had sunk into oblivion. The point where he first saw this river is about six 
hundred miles from its mouth. Pursuing his course westward he came to the Red 
River, whose course he followed for some hundred miles ; but finding still no gold, 
worn out and disgusted, he returned again to the friendly waters of the great river 
whose waves were to become his winding sheet, and there in chagrin and despair he 
breathed his last upon the faithful bosom of his lieutenant, who had followed his 
fortunes from the land of his fathers, on the 31st of May, 1542. 

Here, in the serene air of that mild clime, with the stars watching overhead, and 
the fierce glare of attendant torches throwing over pall and mourners an unearthly 
light, — the wild voices of the priests chanting his death dirge, and many a hard face 
bedewed with tears, — at the close of his long, weary, and fruitless pilgrimage, the gov- 
ernor of Cuba, the discoverer of the Mississippi, the brave Castilian soldier, Ferdi- 
nand De Soto, was committed to the turbid waters of that noble stream, to sleep his 
last sleep upon its unquiet bed. 




.^ -M 



BALTIMORE. 



ALTHOUGH we have placed above the portrait of Cecilius Calvert, one of the 
Lords Baltimore, we design to give a brief sketch of the family as they are 
connected with the history of the settlement of Maryland, whose metropolis bears 
their proud and beautiful name. 

George Calvert, baron of Baltimore, who was really the founder of Maryland, 
was descended from a noble house in Flanders, and born at Kipling, in Yorkshire, 
England, in 1582. He was graduated at Trinity College, Oxford, in 1597. Soon 
after leaving college, he travelled extensively in Europe, and laid up a fair store of 
knowledge. On his return, he entered the office of Sir Robert Cecil, then secretary 
of state to James I. Ingratiating himself into the favor of that monarch, he was 
made clerk of the privy council, and had conferred on liim the honor of knighthood. 
In 1619 he was appointed secretary of state, where his great knowledge of public 
affairs and his tried fidelity procured for him an annual pension of one thousand 
pounds. He made a voyage to Virginia, and was so well pleased with the country 
that on his return to England he obtained a grant from Charles I. for the territory 
now embraced in the State of Maryland. He did not live, however, to enjoy it, 



^QC) BALTIMORE. 



and it fell into the possession of his eldest son, Cecil. His death occurred at Lon 
don, April 15, 1632, in the fifty-first year of his age. 

Cecil, the second Lord Baltimore, on coming into possession, had the grant re- 
drawn, and procured its passage under the seals the same year. He retained nearly 
all the original language of the patent, which was a remarkable document in many 
respects It was quite monarchical in conferring nearly absolute powers upon the 
proprietor and his council, while at the same time it secured to every colonist entire 
freedom in matters of religious faith. 

Sir Cecil now gave himself to the fulfilment of his father's dymg wishes, and 
immediately commenced the work of colonizing the new country. It was called 
Maryland in honor of Henrietta Maria, queen consort of Charles I. The territory 
was purchased of the Indians, and fifty acres of land was given to each emigrant 
who would settle upon and cultivate it. Lord Baltimore came himself with the 
colony, arriving in February, 1634. Having formally taken possession of the tern- 
tory he set himself to work to provide for a permanent state. With a wise forecast, 
unusual at that period, an assembly for the government of the colony was estab- 
lished on the basis of free representation. Laws were passed for securing property 
and punishing crime, and although Sir Cecil was a Roman Catholic himself, he caused 
laws to be promulgated protecting every man in the utterance of his religious 

""^Lord Baltimore appointed his brother, Leonard Calvert, first governor of the col- 
ony who brought over with him two hundred persons, nearly all Roman Catholics ; 
but such was the tolerance of the laws, that in a few years the Protestants outnum- 
bered the Catholics. Having, after considerable difficulties, succeeded in settling his 
colony on the territory now constituting the county of Maryland, he gave it the name 
of St Mary's, and to the creek on which it was situated, the name of St. George. 
They were very fortunate in procuring provisions for the first year from their neigh- 
bors in Virginia, and the next year they were enabled to export a thousand bushels 
of corn to New England, which they exchanged for dried fish and other necessaries. 
Having secured the friendship of the Indians, they were able to purchase of them, 
in return for a few beads and other trifles, venison and game, which abounded in the 

district. . ,, u^ a^A 

In 1645 a rebellion in the colony drove out for a short time the governor, who fled 
to England ; but on the assumption of the government by the Parliament of Eng- 
land, he returned, and but little is known of him after this. 

On the restoration of the second Charles, 1660, Sir Cecil recovered his right and 
title in the territory of Maryland, and shortly after appointed his son Charles as 
governor, in which office he remained during the life of his father, - who died covered 
with honors, and of great age, in 1676, -and then succeeded him in his wealth and 
titles. 




REV. JOHN DAVENPORT. 



JOHN DAVENPORT, one of the founders of New Haven colony, was born in 
Coventry, England, 1597. He went to Merton College, Oxford, in 1613, whence, 
after remaining two years, he removed to Magdalen Hall, which he left without a 
degree. After leaving college, he went to London and commenced preaching. On 
being invited to become pastor of a church in Coleman Street, he returned to Mag- 
dalen Hall and obtained a degree of bachelor of divinity, and was ordained in 1625, 
He remained pastor of this church about eight years, where his popularity as a 
preacher was continually on the increase. He became, also,^one of the most learned 
divines in the kingdom. But trouble awaited him. His want of strict conformity 
disturbed his superiors and exposed him to most bitter persecutions. 

Finding his spiritual Kberty restricted to quite uncomfortable limits, Mr. Davenport 
resigned his charge and fled to Holland at the close of the year 1633. Landing in Am- 
sterdam, he soon became known to the members of the English church in that city, then 
under the care of Mr. Paget ; he was invited to become colleague with the pastor of 
that church, and, having accepted, he was accordingly introduced into that relation 
with the proper ceremonies. But his rijdd views with regard to certain practices o^ the 

3 



9£4 KEY. .IOU.\ DAVENPORT. 

puritan church in Holland led to a discussion which resulted in his resignation of the 
pastoral office. After a while devoted to the instruction of youth, he returned to 
London. 

Here iMr. Davenport, read a letter from Rev, Mr. Cotton, speaking in high praise 
of the colony of Massachusetts, which determined him to visit America. Embra- 
cing the first opportunity, he landed in Boston on the 26th of June, 1637, in company 
with several other eminent men who had fled from religious persecution in the old 
countries. Having formed a company, they determined to colonize " somewhere on 
the beautiful Connecticut." Accordingly, they sailed from Boston on the 30th of 
March, 1638, and settled a colony at length at New Haven, where a church was 
formed, of which JNIr. Davenport became the first pastor. His fu-st sermon was 
preached beneath the branches of a venerable oak in April following. Here he 
labored and preached for nearly thirty years. He was a rigid disciplinarian, and 
" endeavored to establish a civil and religious order more strictly in conformity to the 
word of God than he had seen exhibited in any part of the world. In the govern- 
ment which was established it was ordained that none but members of the church 
should enjoy the privileges of freemen. He was anxious to promote the purity of 
the church, and he therefore wrote against the result of the synod of 1662, which 
met in Massachusetts and recommended a more general baptism of children than 
had before that time been practised. He was scrupulously careful in admitting per- 
sons to church communion, it being a fixed principle with him that no person should 
be received into the church who did not exhibit satisfactory evidence that he was 
truly penitent and believing. He did not think it possible to render the church 
perfectly pure, as men could not search into the heart, but he was persuaded that 
there should be a discrimination." 

While minister of New Haven, he gave refuge to the regicides GofFe and Whalley, 
whom he secreted in his own house for a long while ; and when the instruments of 
the restoration pursued them to their retreat, he publicly preached upon the duty of 
ail good Christians to defend them from the grasp of their enemy. 

On the death of Rev. Mi-. Wilson, minister of the first church of Boston, Mr. 
Davenport was invited to succeed him in this important station. Although now 
nearly seventy years of age, and much beloved by his own church, he thought it his 
duty to enter on this new field of labor, and accordingly removed to Boston at the 
close of the year 1667, and was ordained pastor December 9, 1668, while Mr. Allen 
was at the same time ordained as teacher. Finding a lax discipline prevailing here, 
he set himself to work with great zeal to correct the abuses which had gradually 
accumulated for many years. But his pious purposes were not permitted to be car- 
ried into execution ; for, on the 15th of March, 1670, he was smitten with apoplexy 
and suddenly " passed away." He was nearly seventy-three years of age at the time 
of his death, and was accounted one of the profoundest scholars and ablest divines 
of the American church. His reputation for piety was very great ; and, on the occa- 
sion of the " Westminster Assembly," he was invited to a seat, and also to take an 
active part in the proceedings of that venerable body. 




^ //> 



HUGH PETERS. 



HUGH PETERS was bom in Fowey, Cornwall, England, in 1599. His par- 
entage was highly respectable. Of his early childhood we know little beyond 
that he was fitted to enter Trinity College, Cambridge, which he did at the age of 
fourteen. Here he spent nine years, and graduated with both a bachelor's and mas- 
ter's degree. After leaving college, his attention was directed to the subject of re- 
ligion by a sermon he listened to in St. Paul's. This resulted in his conversion, and 
he became a preacher, having been licensed by Bishop Montague. He became ex- 
ceedingly popular, and his ministry was attended with great success. Having become 
a nonconformist and got himself into difficulty with the church, he sought a purer 
religious atmosphere in Holland. Here he remained until 1635, when he embarked 
for America with a large number of emigi-ants, among whom was Richard Mather, 
reaching Boston in August of that year. 

On reaching this country, Mr. Peters was invited to the care of the Salem Church. 
His predecessor, Roger Williams, had but recently been banished from the colony, 
and he publicly disclaimed his eiTors and excommunicated his adherents. He was 
pastor of that church between five and six years, during which time his labors, both 



28(3 HUGH PETERS. 

in and out of his profession, were arduous and important. He did not confine his 
attention to religious concerns, but took an interest in mercantile and civil affairs. 
He assisted in reforming the police of the town ; he suggested the plan of the fishery, 
and of the coasting and foreign voyages ; he procured carpenters, and engaged in 
trade with great success. " His zeal in worldly concerns," says one of his pious 
biographers, " was probably the cause of his suppressing in Salem the weekly and 
occasional lectures, by which the good men of that day were nourished vip unto eter- 
nal Ufe." 

In August, 1641, he was sent to England, in company with Mr. Welde and Mr. 
Hebbins, to procure some change in the excise laws and more favorable conditions 
of trade in the colony. He retm-ned no more to New England ; but remained in 
England, entering into the political agitations of that period with the same zeal with 
which he had engaged in politics in the colony. He favored the parliament against 
the cause of the king, and exhibited an indiscreet zeal, as say some of his biogi-a- 
phers, in his endeavors in procuring his impeachment. CromweU took him into his 
confidence and favor, and appointed him a licenser of ministers of the gospel. He 
also made him a commissioner for amending the laws — a duty for which he had 
scarcely a single qualification. He seems to have kept close by the side of Crom- 
well through the whole of the reformation, now preaching before parliament, and now 
before the army ; now engaged in his duty as commissioner, and now as " gospel 
licenser." 

On the 30th of January, 1649, Charles I. suffered on the scaffold, and during the 
commonwealth Peters was high in the esteem of his master, as we have seen. But 
the commonwealth came to an end at length, and the Stuarts were reinstated. 
Then came the day of vengeance on all those who had been chiefly instrumental in 
the revolution. Among these, Peters was too conspicuous an actor to escape notice. 
Accordingly he was arrested and shut up in the Tower, and soon after had his trial. 
He was accused of conspiring with Cromwell and others against the life of Charles 
Stuart, King of England, found guilty, and sentenced to be beheaded. "While in 
prison he wTote " A dying Father's Legacy to his Daughter," a work of considerable 
ability, containing much excellent advice. 

Cooke was sentenced to suffer with him. On the morning of the 16th of October, 
1660, they were taken to Tyburn on a hurdle, where Cooke was first executed and 
afterwards drawn and quartered before the eyes of his friend Peters, the executioner 
taunting him with his crime, and, rubbing his gory hands in his face, asked him, 
" How do you like this, Mr. Peters ? " His reply was, " I am not, thank God, terrified 
at it ; you may do your worst." But his fate was soon sealed, and his body suffered 
at the hands of the hangman the same indignities. 

Hugh Peters has been accused of the grossest crimes ; but we are inclined to be- 
fieve that he was generally honest and sincere in all he did, although his zeal and 
indiscretion may have at times hurried him into the performance of things which 
certainly gave ground, in some degree, for the charges made against him. 




HENDRICK HUDSON. 



HENDRICK, or HENRY HUDSON, as he is more usually known, was an 
eminent discoverer and explorer of the American coast. He was born in 
England, and devoted his early life to the seas. But little is known of him prior to 
1607-8, when we find him on a voyage of discovery along the coast of Greenland, 
his object being, like that of all the great navigators of that early day, to find a 
passage to Japan or China — an object which proved to him as unfeasible as to hun- 
dreds of others, from Columbus down to Sir John Franklin. 

His third voyage was in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, who 
furnished him with a ship " further to prosecute his researches along the North 
American continent." On the 25th of March, 1609, he sailed from Holland on that 
adventurous voyage, which, although it nearly cost him his life, resulted so conspicu- 
ously to the interests of mankind, and added so much to the commercial strength 
of his employers. Running along the coast of Lapland, he crossed the Atlantic, 
and after a voyage of immense peril, discovered and landed on Cape Cod, in Mas- 
sachusetts Bay. He then pursued his course southerly as far as the Chesapeake, 
examining all the principal rivers and harbors on his way. On his return he 
ascended the great river which bears his name, as far as where the city of Albany 



283 HENDRICK HUDSON. 

now stands. He reached this place in September, and after spending some weeks in 
exploring the country, and vainly endeavoring to bring the natives to terms, and 
destroying many of them, he turned his prow once more towards Holland, where he 
arrived in the early part of 1610. The company immediately sent out a colony to 
settle at Albany, and another for New Amsterdam, now New York. 

For what reason the company declined to continue the rough old mariner in their 
employ we cannot tell. But he found a patron in a wealthy Hollander, who again 
sent him out towards " the north-west passage," which was destined never to be 
found. But although he failed in this, he discovered the great northern bay which 
bears his name, and where he was destined to find a violent gi-ave. After exploring 
the inlets and promontories of this remarkable bay, he drove his ship into a small 
inlet, where the ice closed around it on the 3d of November. The prospect of a 
long and dreary winter was much relieved by enormous flights of wild fowl, which 
not only aflbrded abundance of food for present use and future prospects, but di- 
verted the attention of his crew from their uncomfortable condition. Already some 
of the men had become troublesome, and hints of revolt and threats of vengeance 
occasionally reached the ears of their commander. But the mild influences of an 
early spring softened at once the stony hearts of the desperadoes, and the icy fetters 
which had held them in their polar prison house for more than half a year. 

As soon as the waters of the bay were sufficiently clear of ice for operations, 
efforts were made to prosecute his discoveries to the north. But his provisions fail- 
ing, he was compelled to abandon the voyage, and return home. In this purpose, 
however, he was frustrated, by the sudden failure of his provisions. The discovery 
of this sad dilemma broke the spirit of the gallant captain, and infuriated his crew. 
He announced their sad condition to his men, and distributed equally among them 
the remnant of his stores, there being but a pound or two of bread, and a paltry 
supply of the wild fowl they had preserved while bound in the ice during the winter. 
In his despair he threatened to set some of the most riotous of his men on shore ; 
whereupon several of the sturdiest among them entered his cabin at night, seized 
and bound his hands behind him, and then set him adrift, with his son and seven of 
the men, who were unable to render any assistance in the navigation of the ship by 
reason of sickness, in a small shallop, and proceeded on their way home, arriving at 
Plymouth after a voyage of terrible suffering, and the loss of seven men by the 
hands of the savages. 

Hudson was never heard of more. He sleeps among the sands of that icegirt 
sea, with that noble sheet of water to which he gave his name for his perpetual 
monument. 




EDWARD RAWSON 



EDWARD RAWSON, the third secretary of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, 
was the reputed descendant and namesake of the doughty Sir Edward Raw- 
son, knight, of ancient memory, and was born in the county of Dorset, Engkin^', 
April 16, 1615. He married a grand-daughter of the celebrated John Hooker, and 
came to this country in 1637. Rapidly gaining the confidence of the people of 
Newbury, Massachusetts, the town in which he settled, within one short year he 
was honored with the election to the then responsible office of selectman, a " com- 
missioner to try small causes," and one of the deputies to represent the town in the 
General Court ; and he so far succeeded in holding this confidence, as to be chosen 
to fill — which he did with honor to himself — all manner of offices in the gift of his 
fellow-townsmen, until 1650, when he was elected secretary to the colony. In his 
" Wonder-working Providence," Mr. Johnson, of devout memory, tells us that " the 
Lord was pleased to raise up faithful men to serve his cause in New England ;" and 
in connection adds, — 

" Mr. Edward Rawson, a young man, yet employed in commonwealth aflfairs a 
long time, being well beloved of the inhabitants of Newbury, having had a large 
hand in her foundation ; but of late, he, being of a ripe capacity, a good yeoman, 



290 EDWARD RAW SON. 

and eloquent inditer, hath been chosen secretary for the country." The following 
year he was elected " agent to receive and disburse the goods and commodities seni 
over from England, to be used for the propagation of the gospel among the Indians." 
This was a delicate and arduous office, and we find that complaints were made by 
the Indians and others of his official conduct while holding it. This, however, was 
not peculiar to his administration of the "Indian affairs;" indeed, perhaps no one 
received less censure than our worthy secretary. 

As an evidence of the primitive simplicity of those early colonial times, we may 
here say, that the salary of " IVIr. Secretary Edward Rawson " was, at first, no more 
than twenty pounds per annum, although it was subsequently increased to sixty. 
In proof of his great popularity, he was annually reelected to the post of secretary, 
until the arrival of Sir Edward Randolph with a new charter, whose first president 
was Joseph Dudley. A new order of things now arose, and Mr. Rawson had to 
yield his office to Randolph. He was still employed by Randolph as custodian to 
his books and papers, and to assist in various ways in the discharge of the numerous 
duties of the office. He retired from public life poor, as appears from a petition to 
the General Court for some slight compensation for his services, towards his sub- 
sistence. Later in life he served as one of the assistants, and filled some other 
minor offices. 

Mr.. Rawson was very exact and methodical in the discharge of his official duties, 
and won the confidence and esteem of the people. In 1689, the new faction, under 
Randolph, fell into disrepute, and the former regime was restored. But Rawson, 
now seventy-four years of age, could not hope for the restoration of his office. 
Indeed, he did not long survive this event, for on the 27th of August, 1693, at the 
age of seventy-eight, he was removed from the scenes of this busy life to the serene 
enjoyment of a higher state. 

The residence of " the great secretary," as he has been called, was in Rawson's 
Lane, now Bromfield Street, Boston, to which he removed on being elected secretary. 
Here he spent many of his latter years, and here he breathed his last in the bosom 
of a large and highly respectable family ; he having been the father of twelve chil- 
dren, among whom was Rebecca, whose romantic and painful history may be found 
in our first volume. 

The only real stain which rested on the character of this great and good man was 
his unrelenting persecution of the Quakers, which acquired for him the undesirable 
sobriquet of " The Persecutor." This arose, doubtless, from the gloomy religious 
character of the times he lived in, and the office he held. That he thought he was 
" doing God service," no one will question ; and bitterly as we hate intolerance in 
ihese latter days of light, we can wink at those " sins of ignorance." 




GOVEENOR JOHN LEVERETT. 



"His words were laws, his laws were put in force, 
" His force was justice, & y'^ noble source 
" Of all his actions, was his noble soul, 
" In y/^ all vertues Liv'd without Controul." 

JOHN LEVERETT, of whom the poet sings so bravely, was a man of no small 
renown, and figured largely in the early history of the colony of Massachusetts. 
He was the only son of Elder Leverett, and was born in England, in the year 1616. 
At the age of eighteen, he came with his father to Boston. In 1639, he was mar- 
ried to Miss Hannah Hudson, who died some time in 1643. In 1645, he was again 
married, his bride being Miss Sarah Sedgwick, daughter of Major General Robert 
Sedgwick, by whom he had twelve children. This " daughter of Asher;' as Cotton 
Mather styles her, in his sermon preached on the occasion of her interment, outlived 
her husband many years, and died at the great age of seventy-four. 

Mr. Leverett was admitted to the freedom of the Massachusetts colony in 1640, 
from which time to his decease he took an active part in its politics and military 
proceedings, and passed through every grade and rank on the list of each. Hi?. 

4 



292 GOVERNOR JOHN LEVF^RETT 

early life was passed in mercantile pursuits ; but this did not hinder his entering into 
the military profession, and as early as 1639, " he became a member of the Ancient 
and Honorable Artillery Company," having previously been a member of the 
"Boston train band." His rise was rapid, passing through every grade from ser- 
geant to captain. For ten years previous to 1673, when he was elected governor, 
he served in the important rank of major general of the Massachusetts militia. 

As a iriilitary commander he was brave and grand, and disported himself at the 
head of his troops, in their bloodless forays, "with great becomingness, and with 
the air of one bent on conquest;" and had there been occasion for the display of 
valor on the battle field, he would, doubtless, have been the bravest among the brave. 

But his gift at cut and thrust and other military accomplishments, seems not to 
have been his only forte. His pen earned him many laurels, and nis voice was 
powerful in the councils of the colony, as well as at the head of an army. In 1651 
he was chosen selectman for the town of Boston. For six years, from 1660 to 1665 
he served as delegate to the General Court, two of which years he acted as speaker 
of the House of Delegates. In 1665, he was called from that body to serve as an 
assistant, and on the 31st of May, 1671, he was elected deputy governor. This 
office he held but two years, and on the demise of Governor Bellingham, he was 
called bv the unanimous voice of the freemen of the colony to occupy the guberna- 
torial chair — a seat which he filled until his death, in 1678. 

Tne robes of office were worn by Governor Leverett with great dignity, and wilh- 
out ostentation, while he discharged the duties which devolved upon him with such 
a combination of firmness and prudence, as to justify the eulogy contained in the 
quaint verse at the head of this article. He was a man of great modesty, and ever 
lived, as he died, one of the straitest of the puritanic church, of which he was for 
nearly a half century a consistent member. 

He died on the 16th of March, 1678-9, in thi midst of his laborious and honor- 
able usefulness, and in the full strength of his ripening manhood, and was interred 
in a state of pomp and ceremony, which, while its description is amusing to us, was, 
doubtless, " imposing and solemn " to the mourners on that sad occasion. Over 
the grave of this modest man was placed the following inflated and high-sounding 
epitaph, which, could the good governor himself have read, would doubtless have 
brought the crimson into his face. 

" To y* Sacred Memory of N. E.'s Heroe, Mars his Generall, Vertues standard, 
bearer, & Learning's glory, y' faithfully pious, & piously faithfull subject to y" Great 
Majesty of Heaven & Earth, y' Experienced souldier in y'' Church Militant, lately 
Listed in y'= Invincible Triuphant Army of y" Lord of Hosts, y'= deservedly Wor- 
shipfuU Jn" Leverett, Esq'", y^ Just, Prudent, & Impartiall Go erno'' of y^ Mattachu- 
setts Colony, In N-E, who surrendred to y" all Conquering Conunand of Death 
March. 16. Anno Dom : 167y 

et yEtatis sua; 63. 




PETRUS STUYVESANT. 



IN 1602 the " Dutch East India Company " received its charter, under whose 
auspices, in 1609, Hendrick Hudson, the eminent navigator, discovered and 
explored " the Great North River of New Netherlands." Colonies were soon 
after formed at Albany and New York, then called New Amsterdam. But little 
progress was made, however, in the settlement of the country until 1621, when the 
" Dutch West India Company" was formed, which afterwards became such a gigan- 
tic "wheel within awheel," and wielded the commercial destinies of a large portion 
of the world. Under the patronage of this mighty corporation, with its exhaustless 
resources of wealth and of power. New Netherlands at once assumed an impetus of 
growth whose force has gone on increasing until the present day, and whose pros- 
pect of diminution is very remote. In both the eastern and western world colonies 
were planted, fostered, and managed by this company, the government of whicii, 
both civil and ecclesiastical, was jilaced in the hands of a governor appointed by the 
company, and styled " director general." 

New Netherlands had received its share of attention, and various men had been 
appointed to the director generalship, who had governed, or misgoverned, its affairs 
for about a quarter of a century, when the doughty Pi:trus Stuyvesant. — who 



294 P E T R U S S T IT Y V E S A N T 

had been director general in the Dutch colony at Curagoa, and from which post he 
had returned to Holland oil account of ill health and a severe wound received in an 
attack on the Island of St. Martin, then in possession of the Portuguese, — received 
the appointment in 1645. Owing,, however, to unavoidable delays, Stuyvesant did 
not take his departure until Christmas of the following year. Four ships comprised 
the squadron which bore the governor-general to the new sphere of his authority, 
filled with the newly-appointed officers of the colony, farmers, tradesmen, artisans, 
speculators, and gentlemen of leisure, seeking a home and livelihood in the new 
world. 

General Stuyvesant's "strong points of character" began at once to appear in 
the rigid discipline of the ships, and the general good order prevalent throughout the 
squadron. At St. Christopher's, Stuyvesant, for good reasons to himself, seized a 
vessel belonging to Schiedam, and instituted a council of inquiry. One Van Dyke, 
appointed to a minor office in the colony, thrust himself into the council, to whom 
the general addressed himself with great severity. " Get out ! " he furiously ex- 
claimed. " Who admitted you into the council ? When I want you I will call you." 

On his arrival at New Amsterdam, he found things in a sad condition. Misrule 
had complete ascendency, and riot, murder, theft, and injustice of all kinds ruled 
the hour. With a wise energy he strove to correct these evils, and at length reduced 
the chaos to order. He issued proclamations throughout the whole colony, forbid- 
ding, under the full penalty of the rigid Dutch laws. Sabbath breaking, drinking, 
fighting, gambling, etc. ; while the most stringent enactments were promulgated 
against smuggling. Customs were established, duties imposed, and tariffs adjusted 
on all articles of exportation and importation, and the strictest measures adopted to 
enforce obedience. He was at once a thorough reformer of abuses, while he con- 
solidated the government, and became thoroughly conservative in its administration. 
He dictated all laAvs and adjudicated all questions growing out of their execution. 
Stern and uncompromising, and possessed withal of an unsuspected character for 
morality and truth, the affairs of the colony prospered under his administration. 
But he had to encounter the machinations of jealous, mean-minded men at home, 
and envious and selfish ones in the colony ; while the controversies with the New 
England colonies, and the continued hostile movements of the neighboring tribes, 
kept the colony in unceasing commotion, rendering his administration of affairs not 
only difficult, but troublesome. 

After twenty years of a troubled reign, he was recalled to defend himself before 
his superiors, and was deprived of his commission. He was the last of the ancient 
regime, for New Netherlands was shortly wrested from the hands of the Dutch by 
the English, under whose rule it remained until 1777, when the United States de- 
clared their independenr-o. Stuyvesant returned to this country in 1668, and died 
in 1672. 




\ 



CAPTAIN BENJAMIN CHURCH. 



No man rendered himself more famous in the early annals of the American 
colonies than Captain Benjamin Church, the destroyer of Indian power in 
the provinces of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The treacherous Philip, king of 
the Narragansetts, who held his court at Mount Hope, had become a terror to the 
exposed colonists, and at the head of his hardy and vigilant band of braves, spread 
devastation and dismay on every hand. He had become exceedingly insolent, and 
his threats of extermination to the whites filled their hearts with dismal forebodings 
of savage cruelty. At length rigorous measures were adopted, and a little army — 
a mere handful of men — was raised and equipped, at whose head was placed the 
redoubtable Captain Churchy who at once opened that campaign which has been 
rendered so illustrious by the fall of Philip, and the annihilation of savage power in 
Plymouth colony. He commenced it with a remarkable activity, and pushed it to 
its conclusion with a skill and vigor worthy a great captain. 

Captain Church was born at Plymouth, in 1639 ; but while yet a child, removed 
with his father to the neighboring town of Duxbury, where he resided until about 
thirty years of age. He became a housewright, learning the trade of his father, and 
wrought at that laborious occupation until the breaking out of " Philip's war," in 



2!j6 captain bKxN.iamin church. 

1674, haviijg just previoasly removed to a piece of land he had j)urchased of gov- 
ernment, and which was situated at Sogkonate, now Compton, Rhode Island. He 
had secured the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and had been intrusted with several 
civil offices, whose duties he had discharged to great acceptance. His education 
was very limited, but his strong good sense and ready wit supplied the deficiency ; 
and when Philip took up arms against the colonies. Church was, by the unanimous 
voice of the people, called to assume the command of the English forces and lead 
the contest. 

Fearless as a lion, and cherishing in his heart, withal, the most deadly hatred of 
the entire race of red men, whose treacherous cruelty and remorseless enmity he had 
so often witnessed. Captain Church cheerfully assumed the post of danger, and alertly 
engaged in the unequal warfare. For this arduous and responsible task he was 
admirably fitted. To a large frame and vigorous constitution he added a never- 
quailing courage, a ripe and sound judgment, and a sagacity which was a match 
even for the wily enemy against whose stratagems and cruelties he was to lead the 
devoted little army who hailed the advent of battle with loud huzzas, and almost 
unrestrainable enthusiasm. Nor did that enthusiasm abate a jot until, driving their 
savage foes from one stronghold to another, they were finally extirpated, and their 
leader slain, and peace once more was restored to the trembling colonies. 

The history of that campaign, as given by Church, the historian and son of the 
captain, exhibits an amount of savage barbarity on the part of the English, which 
their Indian foes endeavored to equal in vain. When Philip fell, the most cruel and 
indecent indignities were offered to his senseless body. At length it was quartered, 
and the parts hung naked on the trees until they perished by decay, or were eaten 
up by the carrion birds of the forest; Captain Church declaring, that '■'■ Forasmuch 
as he has caused many an Englishman's body to lie anburied and rot above the g-i'ound, 
■not one of his bones shall be buried." His head was sent to Plymouth, where it 
was exposed to the gaze of the crowd for many years, and his right hand — which 
had been horribly disfigured by the premature discharge of a pistol some years 
before — was sent to the governor of Massachusetts colony, at Boston, to feed +he 
eager gaze of the multitudes, who rejoiced at the overthrow of their powerful and 
insolent foe. 

After the close of the war. Colonel Church resided for a while at Bristol, Rhode 
Island, then at Fall River; but finally removed to Compton, (Sogkonate,) where he 
resided until his death, which occurred on the 17th of January, 1718, at the age of 
seventy-nine years. Late in life he had become excessively corpulent, and on the 
occasion of a visit to a sister of his, he was thrown from his horse with such force 
as to rupture a blood vessel, which caused his death in a few hours. 




INCREASE MATHER, D. D. 



FEW men have done more for the establishment of the liberties of this country, 
in its early colonial history, than this learned and patriotic divine. In the 
angry discussions between New England and the parent country in the reign of 
Charles II., it was through his bold and persevering efforts that the new charter of 
Massachusetts colony was granted, and its liberties placed on a permanent foun- 
dation. 

Increase Mather, father to the celebrated Cotton Mather, was born at Dorches- 
ter, Massachusetts, on the 21st of January, 1639. So precocious was his childhood, 
that we find him a freshman in Harvard College at the tender age of twelve years, 
from which institution he was graduated in 1656, with honor. The next year he 
commenced preaching, but, immediately after, went abroad, and entered as a student 
at Trinity College, in Dublin. After spending four years abroad, he returned again 
to Boston, and in 1664, was ordained pastor of the North Church in that city, 
which relation he retained sixty-two years, or until 1723. During the later portion 
of his ministry he was assisted by his son, Cotton Mather, who became his col- 
league in 1684. 

On the death of President Oakes, of Harvard College, Mr. Mather was invited 



298 1 INCREASE MATHER, D.l). 

to the vacant chair. His people were unwilling that he should leave his charge, but 
consented that he should assume the duties of that office, on condition that he 
should preach to his own people on the Sabbath. In 1701, the General Court hav- 
ing passed a law requiring the president to reside in Cambridge, he resigned. In 
1688, he went to England as the agent of the colony, and by his zeal and consum- 
mate diplomacy, secured to the province the great benefits of the famous charter of 
1691. Returning in triumph to New England, he was every where greeted as the 
friend of liberty ; and on the assembling of the first legislature under the new 
charter, thanks were publicly tendered him by the speaker of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, " for his faithful, painful, and indefatigable endeavors to serve the 
country." 

The year of his return was memorable for the horrible delusion of witchcraft, and 
the atrocities growing out of it. Dr. Mather sternly opposed these cruel and illegal 
proceedings, and wrote, and preached, and labored to put a stop to them. Still he 
was a firm believer in witchcraft, although he opposed the unlawful and fiendish 
manner in which the accused were proceeded against. 

Dr. Mather was a man of great and varied learning ; of deep piety ; very labo- 
rious, — usually devoting sixteen hours of each day to his studies ; of a spotless 
life and godly conversation ; exceedingly benevolent, — giving one tenth of all his 
income to charitable purposes ; and " was highly esteemed by all classes of people." 
He was a man of unusual gifts, and his writings were accounted excellent. His 
sermons and addresses were always delivered memoriter, his notes never being taken 
into the pulpit. He was esteemed the patriarch of the New England ministry, and 
the day of his death was one of mourning in all the churches. His pen was nearly 
as prolific as that of his son. Cotton Mather, and took a very broad range. His 
productions, besides " many learned and useful prefaces to books," as well as 
legions of fugitive pieces, published from time to time, tmmber ninety-two. Some 
of these bear very quaint titles, as became the fashion of those days. 

In 1662, Dr. Mather married Maria, daughter of the celebrated Rev. John Cotton, 
of Boston, and for whom he named his first-born son. During his presidency, the 
university conferred on him the title of Doctor in Divinity, the first diploma of the 
kind ever issued in British America, and for seventy-nine succeeding years no other 
person received a like honorable attention. 

Full of years and covered with honors, the praise of all good men resting on his 
memory, he was gathered to his fathers on the 23d of August, 1723, at the age of 
eighty-four. 




CHIEF JUSTICE SAMUEL SEWALL. 



SAlMUEL SEWALL was born at Bishop Stoke, Hampshire, England, on the 
28th of March, 1652. At the age of nine, he came to New England with his 
mother, in 1661. He was fitted for college by Rev. Thomas Parker, of Newbury, 
and became a freshman in Harvard University, in 1667, graduating in course in 
1671. He studied theology, and commenced preaching; but, marrying a rich 
heiress soon after, his thoughts were turned in another direction, and he became a 
politician. 

Mr. Sewall was elected one of the assistants, in 1684, which office he held until 
the arrest of Andros. In 1689, the old "Charter government" being restored, he 
was once more chosen assistant. On the granting of the provincial charter, in 1692, 
he was chosen a member of the council, in which he held his seat for the long space 
of thirty-three years, when he declined the honor of a reelection. 

In 1692, Mr. Sewall was appointed one of the judges of a " Special Court of 
Oyer and Terminer, for the trial of persons charged with witchcraft." Judge Sew- 
all partook of the common error prevalent in that age respecting witchcraft. 

" It is well known, that at that time there was a general persuasion, not only in 
New England, but in the mother country, and throughout Europe, of the reality of 



300 C H I I'] F J U S T ICE SAMUEL S E VV A L L . 

those impious compacts with Satan, into which persons guilty of witchcraft were 
supposed to have entered, and of that diabolical power or influence by which they 
were believed to act. This court especially was under the delusion ; and conse- 
quently nineteen persons of the many who were indicted and arraigned before it at 
Salem for this crime, were, at different times, tried, condemned, and, in pursuance 
of its sentence, executed." 

But the delusion did not last long, and Judge Sewall was one of the first to 
perceive his error, and often expressed the sincerest regret and the profoundest 
humiliation on account of the innocent blood he had been an instrument of shed- 
ding. " At a public Fast, January 14, 1697, in the order for which there was some 
reference to the doings of that Court of Oyer and Terminer, and when he was under 
much affliction on account of the death of an infant daughter, and other troubles 
and crosses, he presented to Rev. Samuel Willard, his minister, a ' bill,' which was 
read in the worshipping assembly ; (he standing up while Mr. Willard read it, and 
bowing in token of assent when he had done ;) in which, while with much delicacy 
he appears to have studiously avoided saying any thing that might seem to impli- 
cate the other judges, be acknowledged his own guilt in the decisions of that court, 
asked the pardon of it both of God and man, and deprecated the divine judgments 
on account of his sin or the sin of any other person, upon himself, his family, or 
the land." 

The confidence of his fellow-citizens was by no means lessened in Judge Sewall 
by the part he had taken in " the awful Salem Tragedie." They were nearly all 
involved in the horrible delusion, and the deep grief manifested by him subsequent- 
ly completely effaced all suspicion of his honesty ; for on the first ;ippointment of 
judges of the Superior Court, in 1692, he was chosen one of the five, and on the 
16th of April, 1718, he was appointed chief justice on the same bench, retaining 
his office for ten years, or until 1728. Advancing years, and multiplying infirmities, 
warning him of his unfitness for the duties of that responsible station, he now re- 
signed it, together with several other important offices, and retired to enjoy a brief 
season of repose in the bosom of his family. He died on the first day of January, 
1730, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. 

Chief Justice Sewall has left behind him a character of which his family and 
country may well be proud — one act alone marring its bright escutcheon, and that 
one washed out by tears of penitence and shame. His learning was remarkable for 
his time, as we may judge by the many works he wrote. He was a gentleman as 
well as a scholar, and in his society upright and intelligent men took much delight. 
His house was the seat of an elegant hospitality, and his alms-giving was liberal 
and judicious. 




KING PHILIP 



WHEN the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, the reigning sachem of that country 
was Ousamequin, afterwards more generally known as Massasoit. He had 
two sons, the elder called Wamsotto, who was afterwards, at his own solicitation, 
christened by the English, Alexander ; and Po?netacoin, who also, at the same time, 
was christened Philip. In 1662, on the death of Alexander, who had succeeded 
Massasoit as chief sachem of the Wampanoags, Philip became chief of his tribe. 

Both Philip and his brother Alexander before him had showed a disposition to deal 
treacherously with the English, and soon the enmity of Philip broke forth with 
relentless fury, and continued until his death. He had experienced the treachery and 
falsehood of some of the whites, and, with the usual justice of his people, had uttered 
his condemnation on the whole race of the pale faces. Seeing that they were few 
in numbers, while the red men were as the leaves of the forest, he resolved upon 
a war of extermination. This seemed an easy task, for he was not capably of cal- 
culating the moral forces of civilization, and he set himself about his bloody task 
with such care and zeal that the English really began to fear the fulfilment of his 
threats. 

From 1671 to 1675, the colonies were kept in a perpetual state of excitement and 



^^02 KliNG PHILIP. 

fear. Now and then a quarrel would occur in which some drunken Indian would 
kiU, or himself fall by the hand of, some good-for-nothing Englishman. Treaty after 
treaty was held, message upon message was sent from one to the other of the hostile 
powers. But the savages had grown bold and insolent. Forty years of intercourse 
had destroyed the reverence which the whites had at first inspired, and European 
weapons of war had been pretty generally distributed among their tribes. Philip, 
too, began to feel contempt for the colonists as holding a mere delegated power ; 
and when, just before the breaking out of the war, the governor of Massachusetts 
sent an ambassador to Philip to demand of him why he would make war upon the 
English, and requested him at the same time to enter into a treaty, the sachem made 
him this answer : — 

" Your governor is but a subject of King Charles, of England. 1 shall not treat 
with a subject. I shall treat of peace only with the king, my brother. When he 
comes, I am ready." 

Shortly after this, Sassamon, a friendly Indian, was killed by some of Philip's men. 
The English arrested three of them, tried and hung them. This was the signal for 
war ; and soon the colony was filled with all the horrors of Indian warfare. Men, 
women, and children were relentlessly murdered and tormented in the most horrible 
manner, and hundreds were taken and carried away captives to suffer more abom- 
inable treatment, and to undergo unutterable sufferings. Cottage after cottage, 
hamlet after hamlet, and town after town fell a prey to the ruthless foe. 

At length a general arming of the colonists drove Philip from his kingdom into 
the deep fastnesses of the surrounding wilderness, where he fought at bay for 
months, making an occasional forray into the settlements of the whites, carrying 
slaughter and conflagration wherever he and his myrmidons appeared, and retiring 
to their morasses unmolested. They had now become exceedingly insolent, and, in 
their boastful confidence, taunted the colonists with their weakness and cowardice. 
After burning Lancaster, Medford, and Groton, tney wrote the following provoking 
message to the whites, and stuck it on a post of one of the bridges : — 

" Know by this paper that the Indians, that thou hast provoked to wrath and 
anger, will war this twenty-one years if you will. There are many Indians yet. We 
come three hundred at this time. You must consider the Indians lose nothing but 
their lives. You must lose your fair houses and cattle." 

At length, early on the morning of the 12th of August, 1676, Philip was slain by 
one of the volunteer band of the redoubtable Captain Church, as we have recorded 
in a preceding volume in the memoir of that gallant " trainband captain." The 
body of this great chieftain was treated with the most shameless inhumanity 
and indignity by his Christian conquerors. 

There seems to have been scarcely an element of true greatness in this King' Philip. 
He was cunning and shrewd, but incapable of a comprehensive idea of his own, or 
of others', importance. Red Jacket, Tecumseh, Osceola, and others of the heroic 
chiefs of our aboriginal tribes, seem to have had, without education, an instinctive 
and ju.st conception of human dignity, and a statesmanship worthy the civilization 
of Rome ; but Philip was a mere savag-e. The day of his death was one of great 
rejoicing in all the New England colonies ; and from this time peace reigned in ail 
their borders. 




r ^^ 



REV. BENJAMIN COLMAN, D. D. 



BENJAMIN COLMAN was bora in Boston, October 19, 1673. He was distin 
guished in his early youth for the fervor of his piety and for his great proficiency 
in learning. Graduating with distinguished honor at Harvard University, at Cam- 
bridge, he entered at once into the ministry, and preached for six months to the con- 
gregation in Medford, when, desirous to better fit himself for his great work, he em- 
barked for England, where he could have access to books and men such as could not 
be found in the new country. 

While on his outward passage, the ship was taken by a French cruiser and carried 
into a French port, where, after a few weeks, he was exchanged and sent to London. 
During the engagement, Mr. Colman fought with great bravery with the officers on 
the quarter deck. As a reward for his gallantry his captors stripped him, and, cover- 
ing him with filthy rags, thrust him into the hold, from which he came not forth until 
their arrival in France. At London he formed the acquaintance of Howe, Calamy, 
Burkett, and other ministers favorable to the colonial church, and was at once called 
to preach in many places ; among others, Cambridge and Bath, in which latter pia e 
ne remained about two years 



30^^ REV. BENJAMIN COL MAN, D. D 

The growing reputation of i\L'. Colman soon reached his native town, A new 
society having been formed there, and a place of worship erected for its use in Brat- 
tle Street, he was invited to return and assume its parochial care. The church 
cherishing some peculiarities of opinions relating to usages, he was desired to obtain 
ordination in London, and was accordingly ordained by some dissenting ministers on 
tire 4th of August, 1699. 

On his arrival at Boston, in November following, he was received with great cor- 
diality, and entered at once upon his ministry, and on the 24th of December his new 
house was opened, and he officiated to his new flock for the first time. From this 
period until his death, a space of more than half a century, he continued with his 
people, holding a high place among the clergy of New England, and beloved and re- 
spected by his people. He was an eminently useful and good man, and was univer- 
sally respected for his learning and talents. He was distinguished as a preacher. 
Tall and erect in stature, of a benign aspect, presenting in his whole appearance 
something amiable and venerable, and having a peculiar expression in his eye, he 
was enabled to interest his hearers. His voice was harmonious, and his action in- 
imitable. 

Such was his great popularity, that on the death of Mi*. Leverett, in 1724, then 
president of Harvard University, he was repeatedly invited to assume the honorable 
and responsible office of head of that institution. Such, however, was the strength 
of attachment between himself and his flock, that he would not consent to be sep- 
arated from them. He however took a deep interest in the affairs of the college, and 
his was the principal pen that drew up the rules and orders relating to the Hollis 
professorship then about being organized. He also took great interest in Yale Col- 
lege, for which he generously exerted himself to procure books for a library, both at 
home and abroad. He also exerted himself greatly to aid the mission to the Housa- 
tonic Indians, then under the care of the Rev. Mr. Sergeant. 

Besides these efforts in the way of his profession, Mr. Colman entered heartily into 
the politics of his country, and warmly contested the right of the colonists to make 
and administer their own laws. No minister has, since that time, possessed an equal 
influence both among his people and with the public. 

" His attention to civil concerns drew upon him censure, and at times insult ; but 
he thought himself justified in embracing every opportunity for doing good. He 
knew the interest of his country, and was able to promote it ; and he could not admit 
that the circumstance of his being a minister ought to prevent his exertions. Still 
there were few men more zealous and unwearied in the labors of his sacred office. 
His character was singularly excellent. Having imbibed the true spirit of the gospel, 
he was catholic, moderate, benevolent, ever anxious to promote the gospel of salva- 
tion. He was willing to sacrifice every thing, but truth, to peace." 

With a feeble constitution, Mr. Colman was able to preach nearly all the time, and 
officiated in his own pulpit on the very Sabbath before his death, which occurred at 
Boston on the 29th of August, 1747, aged seventy-three. 




HON. CADWALLADER GOLDEN, M. D. 



CADWALLADER GOLDEN was born at Dunse, Scotland, February 17, 
1688. He was prepared for matriculation under the immediate eye of his 
father ; and, in 1705, he was graduated from the university at Edinburgh with consid- 
erable eclat. After leaving the university, he studied medicine and mathematics, in 
both of which he made substantial acquisitions. Already he had begun to acquire 
no inconsiderable celebrity in his native country, when the reports of the colony of 
William Penn attracted his attention, and he came over to America in 1708, and 
practised medicine in Philadelphia for several years with considerable success. He 
now returned to London, where he became acquainted with Dr. Halley, who was 
greatly pleased with the knowledge he exhibited in the department of natural philos- 
ophy, and who introduced him to many of the most distinguished scholars in Eng- 
land, from whom he gleaned much useful knowledge, which he repaid with a gi-eat 
deal of useful information respecting the natural history of the new world. 

After spending some time in London, Mr. Golden went to Scotland and married a 
Miss Ghristie, a young lady of great worth and highly respectable connections, and 
then, in the autumn of 1716, he returned with his bride to America, and immedi- 



306 HON. CADWALLADER GOLDEN, M.D. 

ately took up his residence in Philadelphia. Having attracted the attention of Gen- 
eral Hunter, the governor of New York, that gentleman offered his patronage and 
begged him to remove to that city, which he did in 1718. Here his usual success 
attended him, and his growing reputation led him to the acquaintance of the finest 
minds in the colony. In two years he was made surveyor general of lands, his com- 
mission being the first ever issued in the colony. Nearly at the same time he also 
received the appointment of master in chancery. 

When Governor Burnett arrived in this country, in 1720, Mr. Colden was honored 
with a seat at the king's council board. He soon rose to be president of the council, 
and, in 1760, succeeded to the administration of the government. In 1761, he was 
appointed lieutenant governor of New York, which office he filled during the remain- 
der of his life. During this period he was frequently left at the head of the govern- 
ment, owing to death or other causes, and his administration was noted for his 
inflexible adherence to his principles and a high sense of honor. It was his fortune 
to be in full authority when a large amount of stamped paper arrived from England. 
Scarcely any act of the mother country so inflamed the wi'ath of the colonists as the 
stamp act, forced upon them, as it was, against their most solemn remonstrance. In 
this instance the clamor was loud; and at one time a band of several thousand patriots 
assembled at the governor's mansion and demanded that the obnoxious article should 
be delivered up ; on denial of which they threatened to burn the fort and massacre 
the governor and all his adherents. His calmness and presence of mind succeeded, 
and he managed to get the paper on board a man-of-war then lying in the stream, 
whUe the enraged assemblage vented their wrath by bm-ning him in effigy, destroy, 
ing his carriages, etc., before his eyes. 

About the year 1758, Mr. Colden had obtained a grant of a tract of land on the Hud- 
son, eight or ten miles above Newburg. Hither, in 1755, he removed with his family, 
and employed his leisure hours in the cultivation of his rough farm, and in gratifying 
the tastes for study which he had acquired in earlier life. Here he lived many years ; 
and, on being appointed lieutenant governor, he once more removed to the city, where 
he lived until after the return of Tryon, in 1775, when he retired to an estate on Long 
Island, where he spent the evening of his days, cheered by the society of those with 
whom he best loved to hold intercourse in the heyday of his life. He died Septem- 
ber 28, 1775, just before the city of New York was laid in ashes, and just as the 
first echoes of the final great outbreak which was to decide the question of liberty or 
bondage for the British colonies in North America reached his dying ears. His age 
was eighty-eight. 

Dr. Colden was a dear lover of natural history, and he early commenced the classi- 
fication of the plants of this country, according to the then known laws of this science, 
and published several interesting papers upon the subject. When the system of 
Linnaeus was presented to the world, he seized it with avidity, and pursued his favorite 
study with more zeal than ever. Although he had given up the practice of medicine 
for many years, he ever delighted in the study of that science, and published several 
volumes on the diseases of the country. He was a constant friend and correspondent 
of Dr. Franklin, Linnaeus, Gronovius, Dr. Pottersfield, and several other eminent men. 







\ 



NINIGRET. 

NINIGRET, or, as he is variously called, Ninicraft^ Ninig-lud, Neneglett, Nene- 
kunat, with as many more readings as there were writers of his name, was a 
chief of a tribe of the Narragansetts, which went by the name of Niantics. His 
place of residence was called Wekapaug^ where Westerly, in Rhode Island, is now 
situated. Early in the history of the colonies of Massachusetts, the Narragansetts 
became entangled with the English, and negotiation and breach of faith followed 
each other so closely that the colonists lost all confidence in their red neighbors. 
The difficulty resulted in a protracted war, in which much English blood was spilt 
and many Indians lost their lives. 

In 1643, a Dutch and Indian war raged wdth much violence, and Ninigret seems 
to have figured somewhat in it ; but the war was brought to a close through the 
friendly interference of Roger Williams, the "Indian's friend." After this he became 
a friend to the Dutch, and went to reside at one time among them in New York. The 
Dutch being at war with the English at this time, considerable alarm was felt by the 
latter lest Ninigret was intending an alliance with their enemies. Commission after 
commission was sent to the Niantics, and the sachem and other chiefs and braves 
were summoned to Plymouth and Boston to meet the commissioners of the united 

6 



308 M N I G R E 1 

colonies upon the subject of their disaffection. The records of these iricetings afford 
some curious specimens of Indian diplomacy. It is ahiiost impossible to determine, 
now, the exact state of the controversy between them. Thus much is certain : the 
English made large demands of ivampum of the Indians, as a compensation for cer- 
tain alleged robberies and injuries suffered by the former at the hands of the latter 
Ninigret does not acknowledge the claim, and somewhat proudly replies to the com- 
missioners, " For what are the Narra^ansetts to pay so much wampum ? I know not 
that they are indebted to the Eng-lishJ^ 

The speeches at these conventions are worthy the slipperiest politicians of modern 
days. In reply to the demand of the English concerning the true feelings of the In- 
dians, they reply, " We desire there may be no mistake, but that ive may be under- 
stood, and that there may be a true understanding- on both sides. We desire to know 
lohere you had this news, that there was such a- league made betwixt the Dutch and us, 
and also to know our accusers.''^ 

As a speciinen of the eloquence of Ninigret, we give a portion of his speech on 
one of these occasions, as we find it condensed in Drake : " I utterly deny that there 
has been any agreement made between the Dutch governor and myself, to fight against 
the English. I did never hear the Dutchmen say they would go and fight against 
the English ; neither did I hear the Indians say they would join with them. But, 
while I was there at the Indian wigwams, there came some Indians that told me 
there was a ship come in from Holland, which did report the English and Dutch were 
fighting together in their own country, and there were several other ships coming with 
ammnnition to fight against the English here, and that there would be a great blow 
given to the English when they came. But this I had from the Indians, and how 
true it is I cannot tell. I know not of any wrong the English have done me, there- 
fore WHY should I fight against them ? Why do the English sachems ask me the 
same questions over and over again ? Do they think we are mad, and would, for a 
i'ew guns and swords, sell our lives, and the lives of our wives and children ? As to 
their tenth question, it being indifferently spoken, whether I may go or send, though 
I know nothing myself, wherein I have wronged the English, to prevent my going ; 
yet, as I said before, it being left to my choice, that is, it being indifferent to the com- 
missioners, whether I will send some one to speak with them, I will send." 

Ninigret did not join w^ith the other Narragansett chiefs in the war of Philip, but 
kept himself aloof. He did not escape the suspicion of the English, however, and 
had considerable trouble to clear himself of the various accusations brought against 
him. 

Ninigret was bitterly opposed to the introduction of the "gospel of the whites" 
into his tribe. To every appeal of the missionaries he returned the arg-nmenttim ad 
hominem, " Wlien it makes good ivhite men, then come to Ninigret and his red brethren^ 
He believed that that was a very poor creed which produced no purer morality, and 
could, for the life of him, perceive no advantage to be derived by embracing a religion 
whose fruits were so imperfect. He could not separate the result from the specula- 
tion. Poor Ninigret! he is neither the first nor the last that has labored, and will still 
labor, under " the dilemma." 

Ninigret lived to be very old, and the time of his death is unknown 



'■^■^S^. 




^>4\ .^■^;s^v~.x 



GENERAL JAMES OGLETHORPE. 



JAMES OGLETHORPE, the founder of the State of Georgia, was a native of 
England, and was born about the year 1688. Of his childhood we know noth- 
ing ; but at a very early age he became a soldier, and entered the British army as 
secretary and aid-de-camp to Prince Eugene. On his leaving the army he was re- 
turned to parliament, where he took an influential position in favor of commerce, and 
rendered himself quite famous as a politician and statesman. He also took a prom- 
inent part in the measures for prison reform, urging it with great eloquence upon the 
government. He visited the prisons in Europe, and gave a very clear report of their 
condition, recommending particular measures of reform which were afterwards 
adopted. Thomson has commemorated his philanthropy in his " Seasons." 

It was the same spirit of benevolence which led Mr. Oglethorpe to take the initial 
step in settling Georgia, of which he became the founder, that a refuge might be pro- 
vided for the poor and suffering in Great Britain, as well as an asylum for the perse- 
cuted Protestants of Europe. He had also another object in view ; viz., the conversion 
of the poor Indians to Christianity. Fired with these noble purposes, he embarked 
on board a ship, and taking with him a number of emigrants, together with all the 



310 GENERAL JAMES OGLETHORPE. 

necessary means for the formation of a settlement in the new countiy, he sailed from 
England in November, 1732. After a tedious voyage he reached the Savannah Riv- 
er, where he disembarked his motley cargo and proceeded to lay the foundation of the 
present city of Savannah. 

To promote the interests of his colony, Mr. Oglethorpe visited the Indians in per- 
son ; made peace-treaties with them ; established a code of laws, and appointed the 
necessary officers and courts to execute them ; crossed the Atlantic several times ; 
brought over from England a regiment of six hundred men to defend his settlement 
from the attacks of the Spaniards who claimed his lands, and of which force he was 
appointed, by the king, general and commander-in-chief; and many other things he 
performed for the comfort, protection, and growth of his struggling colony. Besides 
all these labors, mutiny broke out in his camp, and he came near suffering death by 
the knife of the assassin, from which he was saved by almost a miracle. 

The Spaniards laid claim to Georgia, and sent a force of three thousand men to 
dislodge General Oglethorpe and drive him from Georgia. When this force pro- 
ceeded up the Alatamaha, passing Fort St. Simon's without injury, he was obliged 
to retreat to Frederica. He had but about seven hundred men, besides Indians. Yet 
with a part of these he approached within two miles of the enemy's camp, with the 
design of attacking them by surprise, when a French soldier of his party fired his 
musket and ran into the Spanish lines. His situation was now very critical, for he 
knew that the deserter would make known his weakness. Returning, however, to 
Frederica, he had recourse to the followdng expedient. He wi'ote a letter to the de- 
serter, desiring him to acquaint the Spaniards with the defenceless state of Frederica, 
and to urge them to the attack ; if he could not effect this object, he directed him to 
use all his art to persuade them to stay three days at Fort Simon's, as within that 
time he should have a reenforcement of two thousand land forces, with six ships of 
war, cautioning him at the same time not to drop a hint of Admiral Vernon's med- 
itated attack upon St. Augustine, A Spanish prisoner was intrusted mth this letter, 
under promise of delivering it to the deserter. But he gave it, as was expected and 
intended, to the commander-in-chief, who instantly put the deserter in irons. In the 
perplexity occasioned by this letter, while the enemy was deliberating what measures 
to adopt, three ships of force, which the governor of South Carolina had sent to 
Oglethorpe's aid, appeared off the coast. The Spanish commander was now con- 
vinced, beyond all question, that the letter, instead of being a stratagem, contained 
serious instructions to a spy, and in this moment of consternation set fire to the fort, 
and embarked so precipitately as to leave behind him a number of cannon, with a 
quantity of military stores. 

Soon after this event General Oglethorpe went to England, and retiuned to Geor- 
gia no more. In 1745, he was raised to the rank of major general, and given the 
command of an expedition, in which he was unsuccessful, and for which he was tried 
by a court martial and honorably acquitted. When General Gage returned to Eng- 
land, he was offered the command of the army in America ; but he would not accept 
it unless under the royal assurance that justice should be rendered the colonists. 
This not meeting the views of the throne and Lord North, Lord Howe was appoint- 
ed to the command. He lived to see the colonists independent, and to rejoice in their 
prosperity. He died in August, 1785, at the great age of ninety-seven. 




SIR WILLIAM JOHxNSON. 

nnHERE is nothing more remarkable in the phenomena of life than the wide 
X difference which exists among men in the moral influence they exert over 
classes and individuals. And in no portion of our history is this more manifest 
than in our early intercourse with the Indians of this continent. Nearly all the 
pioneers of American colonization restrained and controlled these savage men with 
the edge of the sword. A few there were who made use of merely moral forces. 
Of this number Sir William Johnson takes a preeminent stand. Born in Ireland 
about the year 1714, he came in early life to this country to superintend the affairs 
of his uncle, Sir Peter Warren, who, having married a lady of New York, and pur- 
chased large tracts of land in the valley of the Mohawk, had sent for young John- 
son for that purpose. 

In the year 1734, Johnson, then about twenty years of age, settled upon a tract 
of land on the Mohawk, and commenced operations. Laying aside all ostentation, 
he mixed freely with the Indians, and succeeded in conciliating them, and establish- 
ing a confidence which continued throughout his life. He travelled, with his gun 
and dogs, through their country, acquiring a correct geographical and topographical 
knowledge of the land ; studied carefull Lheir language, until he had become a 
thorough master of it ; dressed after their iashion, and adapted himself to their style 
of living, even adopting their customs, that he might enlist their regard and 



312 SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON 

^ood will. Jfn this he was successful ; no white man ever before acquiring such in- 
liuence with these simple but shrewd denizens of the forest. He opened a tralFic 
with the Indians, furnishing them with such goods as they needed, trinkets, etc., and 
receiving in exchange furs of various kinds, from which he realized immense wealth. 

When, in 1755, the English determined to wrest Crou^n Point and the surround- 
ing country from the French, Sir AVilliam, then bearing a major general's commis- 
sion in the militia of New York, was joined with General Shirley, and ordered to 
invest this important station. The campaign, though failing of its end, was one of 
considerable importance to the English, and resulted in some small successes to their 
arms. For the part taken by Sir William in this campaign, the Commons voted him 
thanks and five thousand pounds, and the king conferred on him the title of baronet. 

About this time Johnson was appointed superintendent of Indian affairs. His 
influence over these untutored sons of the wilds enabled him to dispense the duties 
of that onerous and difficult office successfully. 

In 1759, in the expedition against Fort Niagara, under General Prideaux, General 
Johnson had command of the provincial troops, and behaved with such valor as 
speedily to reduce this fortress, and thus break off the communication of the French 
between Canada and Louisiana. In this affair General Prideaux was accidentally 
killed by the bursting of a small piece of ordnance, and six hundred men, with 
many munitions of war, provision, etc., fell into the hands of the captors. 

When, in the year following, Amherst led his expedition against Canada, Sir Wil- 
liam brought to the field over one thousand Indians, the largest body that had ever 
been seen in arms on the side of the English. 

On the 11th of July, 1774, truly mourned by a large circle of his savage friends. 
Sir William, at the age of sixty, paid the debt of nature, and was buried on the 
banks of the Mohawk. 

We will close this narrative with the recital of an anecdote, which, while it illus- 
trates the cunning shrewdness of the Indian character, is a capital comment on the 
old saw, » The biter bit:' 

" Soon after Sir William Johnson entered upon his duties as superintendent of In- 
dian affairs in North America, he received from England some richly-embroidered 
suits of clothes. Hendrick was present wsiien they were received, and could not help 
expressing a great desire for a share of them. He went away very thoughtful, but 
returned not long after, and called upon Sir William, and told him he had dreamed 
a dream. Sir William very concernedly desired to know what it was. Hendrick as 
readily told him he had dreamed that Sir William Johnson had presented him with 
one of his new suits of uniform. Sir William could not refuse it, and one of the 
elegant suits was forthwith presented to Hendrick, who went away to show his 
present to his countrymen, and left Sir William to tell the joke to his friends. Some 
time after, the general met Hendrick, and told him he had dreamed a dream. 
Whether the sachem mistrusted that he was now to be taken in his own net, or not, 
is not certain ; but he seriously desired to know what it was, as Sir William had 
done before. The general said he dreamed that Hendrick had presented him with 
a certain tract of land, which he described, (consisting of about five hundred acres 
of the most valuable land in the valley of the Mohawk River.) Hendrick answered, 
^ It is yours ;' but, shaking his head, said, ' Sir William Johnson, I will never dream 
with you again.' " 




JOHN WINTHROP. 



BY some strange mistake, nearly all the early historians of New England have 
called Winthrop the first governor of Massachusetts. But nothing is more 
certain than that John Endecott has the honor of first acting in that capacity, as we 
have already stated in his memoir. P^ndecott was chosen by the Company in Eng- 
land before they removed the seat of their authority to the Massachusetts Bay ; and 
Winthrop was elected first after the transfer. But he also was elected in England, 
and Endecott served a full year before Winthrop came to this country. 

John Winthrop was born on the 12th of June, 1587, in Groton, Suffolk county, 
England, of a highly respectable family, and received, in his early life, the best edu- 
cation that England could offer. He was bred to the law, but being of a religious 
turn of mind, did not devote himself with much energy to his profession. He was 
possessed of considerable wealth, and the path of ambition and fame was open 
before him. He had, however, become converted to the faith of the Puritans, and 
he resolved to commit his fortunes to the support of the cause in the then infant 
church in New England. He converted his large estate into ready money, and hav- 
ing been elected governor of the Massachusetts colony, he embarked for America at 
the age of forty-two, , arriving at Salem on the 12th of June, 1630, and immedi- 
ately entered on his duties as governor of " the colony of Massachusetts Bay." 



3U JOHN WINTHROP 

On the removal of the seat of government to Boston, which occurred soon after, 
Governor Winthrop took up his residence there, where he resided until his death, 
which took place on the 26th of March, 1649, in the sixty-third year of his age. He 
was a man of polished manners, possessed of great firmness mingled with gentleness, 
and was admirably adapted to the situation in which he was placed. He ruled with 
great discretion in all the financial and political matters of the colony, but with great 
severity in all things appertaining to religious faith and life. He knew no toleration 
for heresy, and could not wink at any open immorality. He had withal a very low 
estimate of the intelligence of the masses, and deemed them utterly incapable of 
ruling themselves. When the people of Connecticut were about forming a govern- 
ment, they sought the advice of Winthrop. Among other things in his answer, he 
writes thus : " The best part of a community is always the least, and of that least 
part the wiser are still less." 

In a speech delivered before the General Court, we have his idea of" a pure democ- 
racy." " You have called us to office," he says, " but being called, we have authority 
from God ; it is the ordinance of God, and hath the image of God stamped upon it ; 
and the contempt of it hath been vindicated by God with terrible examples of his 

vengeance There is a liberty of corrupt nature which is inconsistent with 

authority, impatient of restraint, the grand enetny of truth and peace, and all the 
ordinances of God are bent against it. But there is a civil, sacred, federal liberty, 
which consists in every one's enjoying his property, and having the benefit of the 
laws of his country; a liberty for that only which is just and good; for this liberty 
you are to stand with your lives." 

He, however, became more tolerant of religious opinion as he grew older, and Avas 
far less harsh in his treatment of those who thought differently from himself. He 
was naturally of a noble and benevolent turn, and the acidity of his faith could not 
utterly cover the leaven of his generosity. He sympathized deeply with all the 
neighboring colonies, corresponding with, visiting, and advising them in all things 
pertaining to the general weal. He was endowed with an excellent judgment, which 
he exercised with great coolness and deliberation. He was also assiduous in his 
duties, and labored with unwearying diligence to accomplish them. 

Governor Winthrop came to New England possessed of considerable wealth, and 
died a poor man. Exceedingly benevolent, and deeming no sacrifice too great for 
the holy cause to which he had consecrated himself, he therefore gave freely of his 
fortune, as of his time and intellect, in its support. 

An anecdote is related of him which exhibits at one view his benevolence and his 
humor. During the severe cold of a hard winter, when wood was both scarce and 
dear, he was told that a poor neighbor was in the habit of drawing his supply of fuel 
from his wood pile. " Is he?" replied the governor, in much seeming anger; " send 
him to me, and I will cure him of his stealing any more." When the culprit came 
trembling into his presence, he put on his blandest expression, and taking him by the 
hand, said to him, " Friend, it is a cold winter, and I hear that you are meanly pro- 
vided with wood. You are welcome to help yourself at my wood pile until the 
winter is over." He afterwards merrily asked his informant if he did not think that 
ne had cured the man of stealing. 




EZRA STILES, D. D. 



EZRA STILES, son of Rev. Isaac Stiles, was born at North Haven, Connecti- 
cut, December 15, 1727. Indications of rising genius were visible at an early 
period of life, and he entered Yale College, at New Haven, with the highest prom- 
ise, in 1742. Nor did his collegiate course disappoint that promise. A quick and 
brilliant genius, and a sound and lucid intellect, were graced by great suavity of 
address, and a high tone of moral perception and action, thus placing him at once 
at the head of his class, and securing to him the respect and good will of his 
teachers and classmates. He was graduated in 1746 ; being esteemed at the time 
one of the most brilliant scholars which that institution had ever sent forth into the 
world. In 1749, he was chosen tutor in the college, prior to and during which he 
prepared himself for the Christian ministry, and occasionally preached in the neigh- 
borhood. 

Shortly after this, doubts of the truth of Christianity, and feeble health, induced 
Mr. Stiles to give up the thought of preaching, and determined him to study law. 
Having devoted the usual time to the acquisition of legal knowledge, he opened an 
office in New Haven, and commenced business. 

But the law was not according to his taste, or consistent with his convictions 

7 



'316 EZRA STILES, D. D. 

He had passed through a dreadful state of doubt, and consequent mental sufl'''^.*n^-, 
and had resolved thoroughly to examine the claims of Christianity. After much 
and extensive reading, giving himself to long-continued prayer and meditation, 
he was able to throw oft' the shackles of scepticism which had caused him so much 
trouble, and to come to a full conviction of the truth of Christianity, and its claims 
to be an inspired religion. 

Mr. Stiles now returned to the duties of his clerical profession ; and in 1755, ! 
was settled as pastor over the Congregational church in Newport, Rhode Island. 
He lived with his people in great harmony, until the events of the revolution dis- 
persed his congregation. He then went to Dighton, and some other places, preach- 
ing the word, until 1777, when he was elected president of Yale College — an office 
which lie reluctantly accepted, and to wiiich he was installed on the 8th of July, 
the following year. He discharged the duties of president to his alma mater with 
great acceptance, and became known, both at home and abroad, as one of the most 
remarkable scholars of his age. His knowledge of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, 
as well as French, and many of the Oriental languages, brought him into contact 
with some of the finest minds abroad, between whom and himself there existed 
through his life an intimate and pleasant acquaintance and correspondence. He 
received distinguished honors from many learned and scientific societies, both in the 
old world and the new, while the college over which he presided conferred on him 
the title of doctor in divinity. He continued in his office of president vmtil his 
death, which occurred on the 12th of May, 1795, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. 

Dr. Stiles was not a mere theologian, so absorbed in the duties and doctrines of 
his sect as to make him a bigot. He had an enlarged and enlightened Catholicism, 
which did not call in question the right of the individual to any latitude of religious 
opinion, so that his walk was circumspect before the world, and his heart right in 
the sight of God. 

Dr. Stiles was also an ardent lover of civil liberty, entering wiih zeal into all the 
measures for establishing our independence. His sympathy was not confined to his 
own countrymen, but was freely given to all who were struggling to obtain freedom 
from the yoke of the oppressor. 

His personal appearance was rather diminutive, being of low stature, and a 
slight figure. His countenance was full of benevolence and kindness when he was 
conversing with a friend ; but when occasion demanded, it assumed the expression 
of majesty and authority. 







HEJNDRICK. 

IN a beautiful spot in the valley of the Mohawk, on the banks of the river of that 
name, chief of the warlike tribe of the Mohawks, lived Hendrick, a famous old 
warrior of consummate skill and sagacity, and respected or feared by all the neigh- 
boring tribes. He ridcd his own tribe with unquestioned authority, but with such wis- 
dom and prudence as to gain the affection as well as respect of all his grim warriors. 
Dauntless as a lion he sought the post of difficulty and danger, and wherever he 
would dare to go his braves were ever ready to follow. 

When the English settled in the valley of the Mohawk, they found Hendrick mas- 
ter of tlie soil and lord of all the red men there. He received them with a friendly 
hand, and through the prudent management of Sir William Johnson his friendship 
was secured, and he became a formidable ally in the war they afterwards waged with 
the French. Johnson had come to this country to act as the agent of an uncle who 
had purchased large tracts of land in that region, and he lived witli the Indians after 
their own fashion. He was afterwards employed by the English in their war with the 
French, and was enabled to secure the aid of Hendrick and his tribe. At one time 



818 H E N D K I C K . 

he had nearly two thousand wamors in the field, under the English flag, a larger 
number than had ever before been brought into an open field of battle. 

Hendrick was of great service to General Johnson, as he was thoroughly acquaint- 
ed with the country round for hundreds of luiles, and his sagacious but homely coiui- 
sel was often adopted with much advantage. When, on a certain occasion, it had 
been decided in a war council to send a small party to surprise a large body of the 
French, his opinion was asked, he shrewdly replied, " If they are iof/g-Iit, they are too 
few ; if they are to be killed^ they are too many." And when the question was dis. 
cussed whether the attacking party should be separated into three divisions, or make 
the attack in one body, he picked up three small sticks, and, putting them together, 
remarked, " See I you cannot break them together ; try your strength on each one 
separately, and it is easily done." 

Having decided on the attack, just before the commencement of their march the 
old chief luounted a gun carriage and addressed his warriors in a speech full of fire 
and eloquence, and which had an electrical effect upon those impassive sons of the 
forest. He was then past sixty-five years of age, and his long, white locks streamed 
in the wind, making him look like one inspired. President Dwight thus speaks of 
this address : " Lieutenant Colonel Pomeroy, who was present and heard this effusion 
of Indian eloquence, told me that, although he did not understand a word of the 
language, such were the animation of Hendrick, the fire of his eye, the force of his 
gestures, the strength of his emphasis, the apparent propriety of the inflections of his 
voice, and the natural appearance of his whole manner, that himself was more deeply 
affected with this speech than with any other he had ever heard." 

In this bloody fight Hendrick received his death wound. He was shot in the 
back, a fact which gi-eatly annoyed him, lest it should lead his friend Johnson to 
think that he had fallen with his back to the enemy ; but as soon as he could be 
satisfied that the ball came from the extreme flank of the enemy's line, he died con- 
tented. He was greatly lamented both by his subjects and the English. We will 
conclude our sketch of this noble brave with the following characteristic anecdote : 
" Soon after Sir William Johnson entered upon his duties as superintendent of Indian 
affairs in North America, be received from England some richly embroidered suits of 
clothes. Hendrick was present when they were received, and could not help express- 
ing a great desire for a share in them. He went away very thoughtful, but returned 
not long after, and called upon Sir William, and told him he had dreamed a dream. 
Sh- William very concernedly desired to know what it was. Hendrick as readily told 
him he had dreamed that Sir William Johnson had presented him with one of his 
new suits of uniform. Sir William could not refuse it, and one of the elegant suits 
was forthwith presented to Hendrick, who went away to show his present to his 
countrymen, and left Sir William to tell the* joke to his friends. Some time after 
the general met Hendrick, and told him he had dreamed a dream. Whether the 
sachem mistrusted that he was now to be taken in his own net, or not, is not certain ; 
but he seriously desired to know what it was, as Sir William had done before. Tiie 
general said he dreamed that Hendrick had presented him with a certain tract of land, 
which he described, (consisting of about five hundred acres of the most valuable land 
in the valley of the IMohawk River.) Hendrick answered, '■It is yours;'' but, shak- 
ing his head, said, ' Sir WiUiam Johnson, I will never dream with you again.' " 




COUNT ZINZENDORF. 



rriHERE is scarcely a more beautifully romantic spot, and one of more historic 
i interest, in all the country, than the valley of Wyoming. This word, in the lan- 
guage of the aboriginals, signifies beavtifvl plain. Here lived the Delaware tribes 
when the keel of the Mayflower first ploughed the sand in Plymouth harbor, and 
here Zinzendorf and his Moravian brethren found them in 1742, while on a missionary 
tour through the tribes of New York and New England, seeking to enlighten these 
tawny men on the subject of revelation. Theirs were the first tracks made by the 
pale faces in that "beautiful plain." 

We admire the spirit which prompted the good Lafayette and other lovers of hu- 
man freedom to make so many and large sacrifices for the help of their English 
hrcthren struggling on American soil to plant the perpetual altars of liberty ; not less 
should our admiration be stirred at the self-sacrifice of those pure-minded and benev- 
olent men who braved the dangers of the stormy Atlantic, and the terrors of our sov- 
age wilderness and barbarous races, that Ihey might plant here, under the cloud of 
more than heathen darkness, the altars of spiritual freedom from a bondage that 
enslaved the immortal mind. This was the noble purpose of the good Count Zin- 
zendorf, and those pious Moravian Christians, who, like their glorious Master, counted 



320 COUNT Z I N Z E N P R F . 

not their own lives, so that light and life might come to these benighted sons of 
the wilderness. 

Count Zinzendorf was born in Poland, in May, 1700. Descended from an an- 
cient Austrian family, his father held the high office of chamberlain to the King of 
Poland at the time of his birth. His early education was of the very best kind, and 
early in life he was sent to the university of Halle, and afterward to that of Utreclit. 
He completed his education withovit compromising those noble Christian principles 
he had learned at his mothers knee, and left college with a fair degree of such 
knowledge as at that period constituted good scholarship. 

At the age of twenty-one, he made a purchase of the extensive lordship of Berth- 
holdsdorp, in Lusatia, upon which were settled some of the followers of Huss. 
These poor Christians, so simple in their habits, so pure in their morals, and so de- 
vout in their lives, attracted the notice of Zinzendorf, who was soon won to join in 
their services and to become one of their communion. So sincere was his devotion 
to their simple faith that from this period to his death he gave himself up to the 
work of doing good. He became the patron of the Moravians ; built churches, 
endowed schools, and caused the village of Herrnhut to be erected on his own es- 
tates. The result of his labors was soon manifest. The sect spread rapidly, and 
extended throughout Moravia and Bohemia. The. missionaries of the faith were 
scattered over the world, and some of them came to America. After travellmg, as a 
missionary, through Germany, Denmark, and England, the count himself came to 
America in 1741, having been attracted by the heathenish darkness which rested on 
the minds and souls of the aboriginal tribes of this country. 

While here, the Indians became jealous that the good missionaries had come for 
the purpose of spying out their land and delivering them into the hands of the Eng- 
lish ; and the assassination of Zinzendorf, as the leader of the missionaries, was de- 
cided upon. The Indians appointed to perform the fell deed found him in his tent 
at his devotions. They were struck with awe at the sight of the devotee. He had 
built a fire in his tent, as the season was cold, whose warmth had roused a huge rat- 
tlesnake, which was in the act of drawing its slimy length across the feet of the un- 
conscious count, just as they stealthily drew aside the canvas which closed the door 
of his slight dwelling. Struck with awe, they considered him, from that moment, as 
under the special protection of the Great Spirit, and ever after regarded his person 
with the greatest veneration. A successful mission was established among the Dela- 
wares, and many of those sable children of the wilderness became members of their 
church. 

In 1743, Zinzendorf retxirned to Europe, where he continued his benevolent labors, 
travelling extensively and preaching continually until 1760, when he peacefully 
breathed his last, surrounded by his sorrowing Moravians, in the village of Herrnhut. 
His age was sixty. He has left a memory revered and a name beloved wherever hid 
history is known. 




EAUL or CAMDEN 



,4 MONCt the friends of tlie American revolution in the British parliament, there 
J\. were none more devoted to the interests of the colonists than Charles Pratt,. 
Earl of Camden, Along with Pitt he steadily opposed the oppressive measures 
which North and the English ministers strove to carry through that body. He fore- 
told the success of the revolution, and warned the ministry not to presume too far 
on the temper of their Anglo-Saxon brethren. They were, he said, a race that had 
an unconquerable antipathy to oppression in all its forms, and had on English soil 
spurned the chains of their oppressors, and could not be expected tamely to submit to 
the unjust demands of the mother country, although they were their kinsmen and 
brethren. 

Charles Pratt was born in England, in 1713. He was the third son of Chief Justice- 
Pratt, of the King's Bench. He fitted for college at Eton, and completed his classi- 
cal course at Cambridge, leaving that university with high honors. He chose the bar 
as his theatre of action, and soon established his reputation as a legal scholar of rare 
attainments. He had not been long in his profession before his popularity as a bar- 
rister became established by his eloquent and masterly defence of Pitt. That gentle- 



322 EARL OF CAMDEN. 

man fully appreciated his talents and his patriotism, and when, in 1757, he had be- 
come chancellor, he procured for Pratt the office of attorney general. Here he dis- 
played such thorough legal acquisitions, and managed the cases which fell into his 
hands with such adroitness, that, in 1762, he was raised to the dignity of chief justice 
of the common pleas. 

While in this office he presided at the famous trial of John Wilkes, who was ar- 
raigned for sedition, in sustaining and encouraging the rebellious conduct of the 
English colonists in America. He had the manly courage to pronounce his verdict 
against the expressed wishes of the ministry. For this righteous decision he received 
the applause of every honest man in the realm and every patriot throughout the 
world. His reasons for the verdict are powerful and most lucidly expressed, and its 
rendition greatly strengthened the cause of liberty in the new world. 

In 1765, INIr. Pratt was created a peer of the realm with the title of Earl of Cam- 
den. His whole career in the House of Lords was friendly to the interests of the 
English colonists in America, as we have already seen. He spared no effort to lay 
bare the wicked and designing schemes of the ministry and its friends, as well as the 
king, to subjugate the rebellious spirit of the colonists. Without his efforts and those 
of his friends in both houses of parliament, the revolutionary struggle would have been 
greatly prolonged, and thousands of lives more Avould have been sacrificed to Eng- 
lish cupidity. We can hardly estimate as they should be estimated the labors of 
these men in our country's cause. The conquests of diplomacy are more to be 
appreciated than the triumphs of arms ; as moral results are above mere physical 
ones. 

In 1766, Camden was advanced to the Seals. In 1782, he was elected president 
of the privy council, which office he continued to fill — with a brief interim— -until 
his death, which occurred on the 18th of April, 1794, in the eighty-second year of his 
age. Like a shock of corn fully ripe, he was gathered into tjie great garner of mor- 
tality, carrying with him the respect of the world and the blessings of millions of 
freemen whom he had so fearlessly aided in their emancipation from the galling yoke 
of servitude and oppression 




REV. JONATHAN MAYHEW, D. D. 



THOMAS MAYHEW was governor of Martha's Vineyard as early as 1G41 
All the islands in these waters were, also, under his jurisdiction. Thomas, son 
to the above, accompanied his father to the islands, and became the first minister of 
the Vineyard. John, born in 1652, was the son of the first minister, and succeeded 
him in the ministry in that place. Experience was the son of John, and was born in 
1673. He also succeeded his father in the ministry of that place. He died in 1758, 
making one hundred and sixteen years in which the surplice of Martha's Vineyard 
continued to be worn by the same family. 

Jonathan Mayhew was the son of Experience, and is the subject of this memoir. 
He was born at Martha's Vineyard, October 8, 1720, and was early destined to keep 
the sacerdotal order unbroken in the family. As a boy he was serious and studious, 
and early gave signs of great promise. After a due preparation in his father's study 
he was sent to Harvard University, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, where his scholar- 
ship attracted the attention of the neighboring clergy, and he was considered one of 
the most promising young men in the college. Graduating in 1744, he devoted 
several months to the study of theology, when he was invited to succeed Dr. Hooper 



3211 REV. JONATHAN INIAYHEW, D. D. 

the first minister of the West Church, (now Dr. Lowell's,) who had joined the Epis- 
copal communion. Having accepted the invitation, he was ordained on the 17th of 
.June, 1747. Here he labored for nineteen years, constantly increasing in popularity 
and usefulness until his death, which occurred on the 9th of July, 1766, in the forty- 
sixth year of his age. 

The character of this great and good divine is so well described by his biographer, 
the Rev. Dr. Allen, that we feel that we can do no better than to use his own words 
in the conclusion of our memoir : " Dr. May hew possessed superior powers of mind, 
and he was distinguished for his literary attainments. In classical learning he held 
an eminent rank. His ^\Titings evince a mind capable of making the nicest moral 
distinctions, and of gi-asping the most abstruse metaphysical truths. • Among the 
correspondents which his literary character or his attachment to liberty gained him 
abroad were Lardner, Benson, Kippis, Blackburne, and Hollis. From the latter he 
procured many rich donations for the university of Cambridge. Being a determined 
enemy to religious establishments, to test acts, and to ecclesiastical usurpation, he, in 
1763, engaged in a controversy with the Hev. Mr. Apthorp respecting the proceedings 
of the society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts, of which Mr. Ap- 
thorp was a missionary. He contended that the society was either deceived by the 
representations of the persons ein})loyed, or was governed more by a regard to epis- 
copacy than to charity. He was an unshaken friend of civil and religious liberty, 
and the spirit which breathed in liis writings transfused itself into the minds of many 
of his fellow-citizens, and had no little influence in producing those great events 
which took place after his death. He was the associate of Otis and other patriots 
in resisting the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. He believed it to be his duty to 
promote the happiness of his brethren in every possible way, and he therefore took a 
deep interest in political concerns. He possessed singular fortitude and elevation of 
mind. Unshackled by education, he thought for himself, and what he believed he was 
not afraid to avov/. In his natural temper he was warm, and he had not always a 
full command of himself He was, however, amiable in the several relations of life, 
endeared to his friends, ready to perform the oflices of kindness, liberal and charitable 
Some of his contemporaries considered him as not perfectly evangelical in his senti- 
ments. Whether he was correct or not in the result of his inquiries, he was independ- 
ent in making them. But although he thus thought for himself, and wished others 
to enjoy the same liberty, yet he did not degrade his intellectual dignity by confound- 
ing the difference between truth and falsehood, right and wrong, and saying that it is 
of little consequence what a man believes. Though he was called liberal in his sen- 
timents, his charity would not admit of attenuation and expansion to such a degree 
as to embrace every one. His discourses were practical and persuasive, calculated to 
inform the mind and to reach the heart. He depended less on the manner of de- 
livery to captivate his audience than on the truth of his instructions and the motives 
by which he enforce:! them. In his extemporary performances he was not remarkable 
for fluency or ease. As a preacher, he was most interesting to the judicious and en- 
lightened." 




GOVERNOR SALTONSTALL. 



THERE was a dignity and moral grandeur of character in some of that proud old pu- 
ritanic stock which found its way into the wilderness of New England as strange 
as it was rare, which quite eclipsed the ostentatious display of wealth and station 
which nowadays pass current for aristocracy. That was the aristocracy of blood and 
mind, this of mere wealth and place — the genuine diamond and the falseiy-glittering 
paste. It is impossible to look upon some of the leaders of the earliest settlements 
in New England without a feeling of reverence and admiration, while, at the same 
instant, a smile is elicited at the- incongruous robe of puritanism which is thrown 
over it. What a strange mixture of character appeared in these men ! Punctilious, 
exact, and exacting; ready to do and dare; to suffer and sacrifice; even to die for 
conscience' sake, and as ready to sing the death song of any unfortunate brother who 
perished by their hands for an equally conscientious difference of opinion on the 
great subject of religious faith. 

GuRDox Saltonstall, ouc of the early governors of Connecticut; was one of those 
magnificent men whose very step and carriage revealed the noble descent and proud 
consciousness of superiority, as his picture above fully exhibits. Of noble lineage, 



326 GCVEIiNOR SALTOX STALL. 

one of a long line of great-souled men, his father came to New England early in the 
seventeenth centnry ; and from him has descended some of the finest specimens of 
New England men. Gurdon, the subject of this memoir, was born at Haverhill, 
Massachusetts, on the 27th of INIarch, 1666. His early education was acquired at 
the paternal hearth ; and after a due course of preparation in the study of the parish 
minister he was sent to the University at Cambridge, Massachusetts, from whence he 
was graduated in 1684, when only eighteen years of age. 

His godly parents had long since consecrated their beautiful child to the mission 
of the church of Christ — a consecration fully acknowledged by young Saltonstall 
as soon as he had reached the period at which he was thought capable of judging 
for himself. Accordingly, as soon as he left college, he entered upon the study of 
divinity ; and, having received the approbation of the ministerial association in the 
neighborhood where he resided, he commenced his career as a preacher of the gos- 
pel. Such was his great popularity that he received invitations from several quarters ; 
and, accepting a call from the church and society in New London, Connecticut, he 
was ordained to his holy calling on the 25th of November, 1691. 

Here he remained for several years, " every year increasing in favor with God and 
man." He soon began to exhibit those traits of character which so eminently fitted 
him for the Christian ruler. Wise, prudent, judicious, yet energetic and prompt in 
all the duties of his office, his church gi'ew in numbers and in graces under his dil- 
igent oversight ; while his magisterial character indicated to his friends that his 
sphere was in the civil realm rather than the clerical. Thus advised by all his cler- 
ical brethren, and called to the change by the spontaneous voice of the colony, he 
left the sacerdotal robes at the foot of the altar, and, assuming the badges of polit- 
ical office, he entered upon the discharge of the duties of governor of Connecticut,, 
to which he was elected in 1707. 

Governor Saltonstall soon acquired immense influence, and ruled with sucti discreel 
zeal that he was annually reelected to that office until the day of his death, which 
occun-ed September 24, 1724, at which time he was in the fifty-ninth vear of his age. 

He was a strict disciplinarian, and the principal author of the Saybrook plat- 
form. Although contrary to the creed of the puritans, the rigid government of 
the presbyterians had a charm for him, and, beyond doubt, had an influence with 
him in the organization of that religious platform. His influence and popularity 
were such that he could carry almost any measure he desired, and he doubtless 
conti'ibuted not a little to the stern character for which Connecticut was so early 
distinguished. 

Govei.ior Saltonstall had a most majestic eye, which was softened by an exceed- 
ingly benignant smile and a suavity of address, which put at ease all those who 
entered his presence. As an orator he had few superiors ; " the music of his voice, 
the force of his arguments, the Beauty of his allusions, the ease of his transitions, 
and the fulness of his diction giving him the highest rank." 




GOVERNOR BRADSTREET. 



SIMON BR.ADSTREET was the son of a nonconformist minister in England, 
and was born at Hublin, in Lincolnshire, in the month of March, 1603. When 
about fourteen years of age he lost his father, and was taken into the family of the 
Earl of Lincoln, in the character of a servant. Here his interests seem to have been 
well cared for, and as an evidence of his good standing he was made steward, whose 
duties he discharged under the eye of Thomas Dudley, the overseer of the Lincoln 
estates, and afterwards governor of Massachusetts, colony in New England. The 
family of the earl was noted for its strict religious character, and here young Brad- 
street acquired a reverence for religious truth and a taste for the practice of religious* 
observances which never deserted him. While in the earl's family he passed a year 
at Emanuel College, Cambridge, where he made some proficiency in the studies of 
the classics. 

At the close of his collegiate term, Mr. Bradstreet was invited to assume the stew- 
ardship of the family of the Countess of Warwick, which office he accepted and held 
for two or three years. This was at the period when the subject of New England 
colonization was the principal topic of conversation in the English circles, especially 



328 GOVERNOR BRADSTREET. 

among the nonconformists. He was easily persuaded to join Mr. Dudley and others 
in the plan of making a settlement in Massachusetts, and, in 1630, he was chosen an 
assistant of the colony about to be transfeiTcd to the bleak shores of the new world. 
Having married the daughter of Mr. Dudley, he sailed with the colony and landed at 
Salem (Strawberry Bank) late in the summer of that year. 

Mr. Bradstreet seems to have won the confidence of all the members of his colony, 
for on his arrival he was immediately elected one of their judges, being then only 
twenty-seven years of age. He was present at the first court, which was holden at 
Charlestown on the 2od of August. Subsequently he was chosen secretary and 
agent of Massachusetts, as well as a commissioner of the united colonies. 

In 1662, he was appointed, together with Mr. Norton, to congratulate King Charles 
on his restoration. He accordingly sailed for England, and having discharged the 
important mission in a manner highly flattering to the reinstated monarch, returned 
again to the shores of his adopted country. Business of high import to the colony 
was intrusted to his care, in the same mission, which he discharged to the entire sat- 
isfaction of the colony. On his return he was elected deputy governor, which office 
he held until 1679. 

When, in 1680, Governor Leverett ceased to be the chief officer of the colony, Mr. 
Bradstreet succeeded him, and held that office until the dissolution of the charter, in 
1686. Mr. Dudley now entered upon the administration of the new office of presi- 
dent of New England. But in three years after this the office of governor was re- 
stored, and Mr. Bradstreet was again called to fulfil its high duties. He held the 
office until 1692, when Sir William Phipps arrived in New England with a new 
charter, which deprived the people of the right of electing their own officers. 

Mr. Bradstreet now retired to private life, carrying with him the respect of all the 
colonists. His administration had been wise, judicious, and energetic. To be sure, 
he shared in the common uncharitableness of Congregationalism, and did his part 
towards persecuting the Quakers and Anabaptists. But this was a fault of the age, 
and no rcan's uncharitableness towards these "fanatics" was considered a moral 
blemish ; indeed, it would have been thought the greatest Christian shortcoming to 
have acted with toleration towards these unfortunate sects. He lived but a few years 
after his retirement to Salem, and died at the gi-eat age of ninety-four, having served 
as an assistant of the colony above a half century, when he was gathered to his 
fathers. 

" Governor Bradstreet, though he possessed no vigorous nor splendid talents, yet 
by his integrity, prudence, moderation, and piety, acquired the confidence of all classes 
of people. When King Charles demanded a surrender of the charter, he was in fa- 
vor of complying; and the event proved the correctness of his opinion. He thought 
it would be more prudent for the colonists to submit to a power which they could not 
resist, than to have judgment given against the charter, and thus their privileges be 
entirely cut off. His first wife, the daughter of Governor Thomas Dudley, was a 
woman of distinguished genius and learning, and author of a volume of poems." 



VOLUME II. 



PART II. 



EMBRACING THE PERIOD FROM THE 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, 



WAR OF 1812 WITH ENGLAND. 




GEORGE III. 



DURING the period which the British throne was occujjied by George III., the 
United States were involved in two wars with that mighty power ; the first a 
war of independence, the second a war of contested rights, both declared by our 
country, and both successful in securing the ends for which they were declared. 
During the first, George was in the full vigor of early manhood ; during the last, 
he lay on a paralytic bed, insensible to the most trifling objects about him. 

The English desire for Ihe extension and consolidation of power, for the multi- 
plication of its acres, and the increase of its mercantile wealth, is insatiable. The 
predecessors of the third George had wrested an immense and valuable territory 
from Spain, France, and the nations of the western world, and having received the 
charge of such a treasure, this monarch determined to make it a powerful aid to 
British greatness, and the glory of the English crown. Mistaking the means to 
bring about this result, George and his ministers resorted to force ; forgetful of the 
fact that the colonists were Anglo-Saxons, and of the same blood with themselves 
and their ancestors — a race which had never learned, and could never be taught, the 
hard lesson of submission to tyrants. The more impatient and restless they became 
under the tyrannic administration of unjust laws, the more stringent were the 

9 



332 GEORGE II J. 

measures resorted io to bring them under subjection. And when at length the 
colonies declared their determination to throw oft' the galling yoke of English rule, 
Georsre and his ministers resolved to crush out the rebellion with fire and sword. The 
ablest generals, commanding the flower of his army, and supplied with exhaustless 
munitions of war, were sent over sea for this declared purpose. No one of his sub- 
servient ministry, not a private Briton in the realm, was more determined to execute 
this stern and unholy purpose than the king. At the very commencement of the 
struggle the corporation of London petitioned the king to cause hostilities between 
the mother country and her colonies in America to cease. His reply was character- 
istic : " While the constitutional authority of this kingdom is openly resisted by a 
part of my American subjects, I owe it to the rest of my people, of whose zeal and 
fidelity I have had such constant proofs, to continue and enforce those measures by 
which alone their rights and interests can be asserted and maintained." 

At length, after seven years of desperate struggle, the arms of liberty were per- 
fectly triumphant ; and after much and long negotiation, the independence of the 
United States was- formally, however reluctantly, acknowledged by England. On 
the meeting of the king and Mr. Adams, the first minister of the United States sent 
to the court of St. James, George thus gracefully recognized the fact : " It has been 
with the greatest reluctance that I have, at length, assented to the separation of the 
transatlantic colonies from my dominion ; but this I now do in the most frank and 
conciliating manner ; and now that their independence is ratified, I shall be the last 
man in my kingdom to encourage the slightest violation of the compact." 

George III. ruled his kingdom in one of the stormiest periods of its history ; and 
it is enough to say that, save the disastrous loss of its American colonies, the king- 
dom prospered under his administration, and he won the respect and love of his 
people. 

George III. was born on the 24th of May, old style, 1738. He was crowned on 
the 25th of September, 1761 ; and was married, September 7 of the same year, to 
Princess Sophia Charlotte, second daughter to Charles Lewis, duke of Mecklenburg 
Straulitz. He died January 29, 1820. His reign was a long one, being fifty-nine 
years ; the last nine of which the poor monarch passed in helpless idiocy and hope- 
less blindness. 




LORD HOAYE. 



I 



RICHARD, EARL HOWE, an eminent English naval officer, who figured 
somewhat largely in the American revolution, was born in 1725, and suc- 
ceeded to his title by the death of his elder brother, Lord Howe, who fell at Ticon- 
deroga, in 1758. He spent the early years of his life at Eton, which school he left 
for the sea when he was fourteen. He entered the navy as midshipman, and ren- 
dered his first service on board the Severn, Captain Legge, under Lord Anson, and 
sailed at once for the South Seas. In the next ship he entered his captain was 
killed, and Howe was made lieutenant. At twenty he was given command of the 
sloop-of-war Baltimore, in which he was severely wounded in cruising off Scotland, 
in an action with the French. His intrepidity and seamanship in this cruise won 
the approval of his king, and secured him the rank of post captain. He was re- 
moved to Commodore Knowlcs's own ship, and returned to England in 1748. 

When hostilities recommenced between England and France, he was sent to 
America in command of the Dunkirk, of sixty guns, under Admiral Boscawen, and 
had the good fortune to make a prize of the French ship Alcade, of sixty-four guns. 
He cruised on our coast several months with various success, and then returned once 
more to England. He was not long permitted to lie in idleness, for the British lion 



334 LORD HOWE. 

had his hands full to keep in bay his restless foe. In 1758 he was put in command 
of a small squadron destined for the coast of France. For the duties rendered in 
this cruise he was, on his return to England, raised to the rank of rear admiral of 
the blue. 

In 1776, Lord Howe was put in command of a strong squadron, despatched to 
New England to quell the rebellious colonists, who had akeady risen in resistance to 
British oppression. After a long struggle the patriots abandoned New York, and 
Lord Howe entered and took possession on the 15th of September, 1776, and for 
seven years it remained in the hands of the English, despite all the efforts of the 
Americans to regain it. Many hopes were created by the appearance of the French 
fleet under D'Estaing, but Howe drove him into Newport, Rhode Island, and shut 
him up there, and then, resigning his post, he returned once more to England. On 
his arrival he was promoted to the honor of admiral of the blue. He was also 
flatteringly created viscount, and placed in command of the brilliant squadron that 
was sent to the relief of Gibraltar. This was a post of honor as well as danger, 
and required the services of the ablest and best commanders. Lord Howe proved 
that the confidence of the ministry was not misplaced when they put him at the 
head of this great expedition. 

On the term.ination of the war. Lord Howe was nominated first lord of the Ad- 
miralty, and in 17S7 he was made admiral of the white. War breaking out in 1793, 
he was placed in command of the channel fleet, and with twenty-five sail of the line, 
he fought and conquered twenty-six French ships of equal calibre and metal. The 
battle was bloody and long, and so badly was the French fleet cut up, that one of 
its largest ships went to the bottom, and several were rendered totally unfit for future 
service. 

For this brave act Lord Howe was appointed general of the marines, in 1795. 
This was the last of his active service. The long-continued duties and constant 
exposures of his naval life at length overcame the veteran, and in 1797 he resigned 
his command, and retired from the navy to which he had added so much glory. The 
king, in consideration of the eminent services he had rendered his country, presented 
the weather-beaten tar with the decoration of the garter. He did not live long to 
enjoy it, for he died in August, 1799, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. 




MRS. ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 



"TT7"HAT a host of memories gather in solemn beauty around this name I How 
T T it opens the sealed book of the past, and unfolds to our view, as we turn 
its crumpled and soiled pages, the busy scenes of those days, when the virgins and 
fair dames of the revolution graced the drawing rooms of Washington, and the 
Adamses, and Hancock, and Hamilton, and Franklin, and the rest of that noble 
band " whose names are written in heaven," and whose acts have immortalized 
their memories ; who, amidst all the weighty cares of those troublous days, yet 
found time for the recherche reunions of the wealthy, the gifted, the wise, and the 
good — tnose dames and sires, those young men and maidens, of 1776! 

But what a silence reigns now in those brave saloons I and the voices which rang 
out so merrily on the jocund air, or that spoke with such a subdued sadness of the 
sufferings of our bleeding country, are hushed and still as the silent night. Where 
are ye all, ye forms of beauty and of manly strength ? Gone, all gone 

"to join 
The innumerable caravan that moves 
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death I " 



336 MRS. ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 

All, save here and there a bowed and venerable form, on which Time hath engraved 
the deep, hard lines of his heavy hand, and which moves among us like ghosts of 
the ac^es gone, to keep us in mind of our obligations of gratitude and love. Few 
and far between are they, and dropping like autumn leaves from the frostbitten 
trees into the bosom of the earth. And soon, of all that "innumerable caravan," 
there will be none left to tell, with trembling tongue, the story of those days of trial 
and of glory — no, not one I 

Elizabeth Hamilton, the beautiful and accomplished partner of Alexander 
Hamilton, who was so ingloriously cut oflf in the midst of his usefulness and great- 
ness, was born in 1757. She was the daughter of Major General Schuyler, as brave 
and patriotic an olBcer as ever drew his blade in the cause of freedom. Of her 
childhood we can glean little, besides that, being possessed of an uncommonly 
vivacious mind and gentle disposition, she attracted the attention of all her father's 
o-uests. Among these was the gallant Hamilton, then a young American soldier of 
great promise, handsome in perso'n, and of a winning address. The attractions of 
Miss Schuyler must have been of an uncommon order, to have taken by storm such 
a citadel. They were married in 1780, with the battle guns of the revolution firing 
their salute, and the "liberty bell" ringing out the merry marriage peal. 

For twenty-four years they lived together in the strong and fresh alTection of their 
plighted love. By his side, to cheer him with her smiles, she stood in the dark hours 
of their country's struggle ; by his side she stood to join in the jubilant shout 
those freemen shook the heavens and the earth withal, — of ransomed hosts and fallen 
foes. Twenty-four years! Then came the day of grief; the ruthless blow which 
severed, in one fell moment of unutterable woe, the ties of earth, and laid her lord a 
murdered corse on the green turf of Bladensburg, and left the bereaved one to go 
mourning to her grave. One long, loud shriek of agony told of the broken heart ; 
and then that strong woman rose in her dignified might, and bore herself as became 
the companion of that mighty, fallen patriot. A settled grief rested on her fair 
brow ; but she moved among her family and her friends with a cheerful trust, waiting 
for the summons — so long delayed — to join her departed husband in the land of 
repose and reward. 

Mrs. Hamilton has proved the truth of the axiom, " Sweet are the uses of adver- 
sity ; " and with a chastened heart, and a submissive, cheerful spirit, she has ever 
done what her hands found to do with a ready zeal. In company with Mrs. Be- 
thime she founded the " Orphan Asylum " at Bloomingdale, the head directress of 
which she became, and for many years devoted her time, and purse, and heart in 
doing what she could to cheer the lives of the poor orphans who came into her 
establishment. 

Mrs. Hamilton has just departed from our midst in her ninety-eighth year, thus 
severing one of the last few hallowed links that bind us to the glorious struggle of 
our fathers which resulted in our national independence. 




MAJOR GENERAL GREENE 



THIS brave officer, who, by common consent, is ranked second only to Washing- 
ton among our revolutionary heroes, was the son of a Quaker, and was born 
in Warwick, Rhode Island, in 1742. He early manifested a love' for knowledge, 
which his ignorant father took no pains to gratify ; but by his own unaided efforts, 
he laid in a good stock of general and scientific knowledge, and acquired a tolerable 
acquaintance of Latin, while he was yet a mere stripling. He read every thing 
which came into his hand ; and a strong military taste was awakened by the stories 
of war which fired his youthful imagination. He grew up respected by his fellow- 
citizens, and at a very early age he was sent to the legislature of his native state. 

Soon after came the earthquake of freedom, and the battle of Lexington was its 
first effectual warning. Electrically the news spread from colony to colony, and 
from village to village, until every freeman's heart was roused, and each freeman's 
hand was on his sword. Greene, at the head of three regiments of soldiers, over 
whom he had been chosen major general, hastened to Cambridge, where the nucleus 
of the army of freedom was already established, and where he was speedily joined 
by Washington, Gates, Reed, and others, ready " to do and die " for their just and 
holy cause. Accepting a commission from Congress of brigadier general, he 



338 M A J O R G E N E R A L G R E E N E . 

accompanied the army to New York, and in the battles of Trenton, on the 26th of 
December, 1776, and of Princeton, on the 3d of January, 1777, he greatly distin- 
guiiiihed himself. 

After the battle of Brandywine, the American army was led against Genera. 
Howe, who was encamped at Germantown, in which affair the American arms were 
again unsuccessful. He was then despatched with a strong detachment to prevent 
Cornwallis from procuring supplies, for which purpose he had been sent into New 
Jersey with a force of three thousand men ; but finding the British strength greatly 
superior to his own, he was obliged to return to camp without accomplishing any 
thing. 

Just previous to the battle of Monmouth, in which General Greene led the right 
wing of the army, and with great skill and dreadful effect, he had received the ap- 
pointment of quartermaster general, which he accepted on condition that he should 
resume his former post in time of battle. He resigned this office the following year, 
and was succeeded by Colonel Pickering. His skill and bravery were again called 
into action, in the affair at Newport, in conjunction with General Sullivan and 
D'Estaing. In June, 1780, he acquired a victory at Springfield, over Sir H. Clinton, 
whose force greatly exceeded that of his own. In October he was appointed to 
succeed the traitor Arnold in the command of West Point. He remained here but 
a short space of time, as Washington sent him to supersede Gates in command of 
the southern army. 

Here, for the first time, he was in supreme command, and here his genius became 
manifest — leading him through weakness to strength, through defeat to victory, and 
through disaster to glory. Having recruited his oft-defeated, worn-out, and dispirited 
army, he commenced operations. The brilliant affair of the Cowpens, where the 
iron-hearted Morgan first broke the English prestige, was the auspicious entree to 
this last and glorious campaign. Effecting a junction with Morgan on the 7th of 
February, and finding the array of Cornwallis greatly superior to his own, he retired 
into Virginia, and recruiting his forces, he returned to meet the foe, and fought the 
battle of Guilford on the 15th of March, 1781. Although defeated, the victory was a 
dear one to the English. After several unsuccessful fights, he was compelled once 
more to retire, once more to recruit, and once more to return to victory, with that 
noble resolve on his lips and in his bosom, '•^ I will recover South Carolina, or die in 
the attempt^ After declining to meet Greene at Orangeburg, the enemy was com- 
pelled to fight at Eutaw Springs, where he was defeated, with the loss of eleven 
hundred men, while our own loss was only half that number. This broke the power 
of George HI. in South Carolina, and Cornwallis was soon after compelled to 
surrender. 

After the war General Greene went first to Rhode Island, and then to Georgia, 
where he had an estate near the city of Savannah. Here he died of coup de solcil, on 
the 19th of June, 1786, in the forty-fourth year of his age. 




JONATHAN EDWARDS, D. D. 

JONATHAN EDWARDS — the third Edwards — son of Rev. Jonathan Ed- 
wards, the distinguished minister of Northampton, Massachusetts, and grandson 
of Rev. Timothy Edwards, minister of East Windsor, Connecticut, was born at 
Northampton, Massachusetts, on the 26th of May, 1745. His mother. Miss Sarah 
Pierrepont, herself the daughter of a clergyman, and a descendant of " the godly 
Hooker," was a woman of rare beauty, singular accomplishments, and exalted piety. 
In his veins mingled the best blood of the puritans, and his whole life showed that it 
had not a whit degenerated. His childhood was grave, earnest, energetic, and he gave 
early proofs of that great diligence which so eminently marked his later career. He 
was singularly affectionate, dutiful and conscientious, and he made the most faithful 
use of the exalted privileges afforded him in his father's house. 

When only six years of age, young Jonathan's happy home was broken up by that 
singular and unhappy collision which took place between his father and the people 
of his charge, and which resulted in their final separation. On leaving Northampton, 
the elder Edwards removed to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, at that time inhabited 
almost exclusively by Indians. Here the child became the daily playmate of the 

10 



340 JONATHAN EDWARDS, D. D. 

little redskins, and he learned to speak their language with a (luency and correctness 
seldom attained by any of the Anglo-Saxon race. " It became more familiar to me," 
says he, afterwards, in speaking of his sojourn among the Indians, "than my mother 
ton"-ue. I knew the names of some things in Indian that I did not know in English." 
This knowledge he retained through life. When he was ten years of age, his father, 
observing- the facility with which he acquired the language, sent him, in company 
with a missionary, to the Oneidas, where he remained some months, making rapid 
progress in the acquisition of their tongue. 

In January, 1758, the father of young Edwards was called to the presidency of 
Princeton College, and in March following was suddenly cut off with a malignant 
disease, leaving a family of ten children, of whom Jonathan was the ninth, dependent 
upon the resources of their mother, who followed her husband to " the land of dark- 
ness and of shades" in the course of the same year. It was in his thirteenth year 
that Jonathan found himself bereft of his parental guides, and turned upon the world 
with but a small patrimony. But his was a spirit only to be roused by difficulty. 
He resolved to acquire an education, and by the aid of some friends he was placed 
in the crrammar school of the place, where he made such rapid progress as to be pre- 
pared to enter the college the following year, and graduated in September, 1765, with 
the customary degree of bachelor of arts. In the summer of 1763, a work of grace 
commenced in the college, then under the presidency of Dr. Finley, of which he be- 
came a hopeful subject, and made a public profession of his faith in the following 
September. 

Before entering college, Mr. Edwards had made large attainments in the exact 
sciences, for which he seemed to have almost an intuition, and while there acquired 
o-reat proficiency in classical knowledge, laying the foundation for the reputation he 
subsequently enjoyed of being one of the ripest scholars of his age. Immediately 
on leavino- college, he entered the study of the early friend of his father, the Rev. 
Dr. Bellamy, of Connecticut, and was licensed as a preacher of the gospel by the 
" Litchfield County Association of Congregational Ministers," in October, 1766. In 
the year following, he was appointed tutor in the college from which he had obtained 
his degree, and a few months after was chosen professor of languages and logic, which 
latter honor, however, he declined. On the 5th of January, 1769, he was ordained 
a pastor of the church in White Haven, a j)arish in the town of New Haven, Con- 
necticut. He remained here until 1795, when he resigned his pastorate. In 1796, 
he was once more settled in Colebrook, in the same state. Three years subsequently, 
he was called to the presidency of Union College, at Schenectady, New York, and 
entered into office the same year. But the high hopes awakened in the world of 
letters by the elevation of this worthy man and rare scholar to that high office were 
not permitted to be realized, for death claimed him for a victim. He died, full of 
faith and joy, on the 1st day of August, 1801, at the age of fifty-six. 




UOCHAMBEAU. 



THERE is a deal of romance in the history of those gallant P'renchmen who 
perilled their lives for glory and liberty in our revolutionary struggle. They 
came not to fight for their country, not to acquire territory, not to multiply titles, or 
to increase their wealth. Congress had no inducements to offer but promises, which 
it was exceedingly doubtful if it were ever able to fulfil. They came to bleed for 
freedom and to fight for fame. At this far-off period, when we have become great, 
and could defy, if need be, the whole world, we are apt to forget the large debt we 
owe those brave men who lent so greatly to the accomplishment of our independence. 
Among the foremost of those brave and patriotic Frenchmen who helped us to 
fight our battles of freedom, after La Fayette, we place the name of Jean Baptistr 
Donation de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau. He was born at Vendome, in 1725, 
and, after acquiring an education at the military schools of France, entered the army 
at the age of sixteen. His first military service was rendered in the Germanic war, 
under Marshal Broglio, where he gave high promise of his future bright career. In 
1746, Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, made him his aid-de-camp, from which post 
he was elevated to the command of the regiment of La Marche. In this command 
he saw severe service. He was in the battle of Lafeldt, where he won distinguished 



342 It O C H A M B E A U . 

honor and honorable scars. Close on this gallant action came the bloody conflicts 
of Cre veldt, Murden, Corbach, and Clostercamp, at all of which he gathered fresh 
laurels, and returned to France covered with glory and with wounds. For his noble 
conduct in this campaign, his king presented him with the commission of lieutenant 
general. 

In 1780, he was put in command of an army of six thousand men, and came to 
America to render assistance to the United States, who were struggling to maintain 
the declaration of independence they had made to the world in the face of British 
aggression and outrage. Disembarking his troops at Rhode Island, he marched di- 
rectly to New York, to assist Washington against Sir Henry Clinton, and then 
accompanied him to South Carolina, to assist in the capture of Lord Cornwallis. 
He rendered very important aid to Washington and his cause, and greatly con- 
tributed to the reduction of Yorktown. For the services rendered on this occasion, 
Congress voted him thanks, and presented him with two pieces of ordnance taken 
from Cornwallis at the surrender of Yorktown. 

After his return to his native country, Louis XIV. created him a marshal of 
France, and gave him the command of the army of the north. While in command 
of this wing of the army, he was the victim of intrigue, and his calumniators suc- 
ceeded in getting him superseded. He appealed to the legislative assembly, and 
was triumphantly vindicated by that body, by a formal vote passed in May, 1792. 
On this triumph — his last and his greatest — he determined to repose, and no more 
mingle in the political struggles then going on in his native France between legiti- 
macy and republicanism, and consequently retired to his estite near Vendome, 
hoping to spend the remainder of his days in quietness. 

But the name of Rochambeau stood too high to be passed o\er unnoticed by that 
blood-loving hyena, Robespierre, and he was arrested and thrown into prison, and 
very narrowly escaped the guillotine. Afterward, in 1803, he was presented to Na- 
poleon, who gave him a pension, and conferred on him the cross of grand officer of 
tiie le"ion of honor. His death occurred in 1807. 







CHIEF JUSTICE EDAVARD SHIPPEN. 

EDWARD SHIPPEN, one of the chief justices of the state of Pennsylvania, 
was born in the city of Philadelphia, on the 16th day of February, 1729. Hi? 
father, Edward Shippen, whose father was a gentleman of family and fortune in 
England, came to America in 1675, and settled in Boston, in the colony of Massa- 
chusetts Bay. Here he resided for a considerable time, holding various hio-h offices 
and gaining universal respect, when he removed to the city of Philadelphia, where he 
attained to several places of high honor and emolument. Here the subject of the 
present memoir was born, and here he passed through a thorough course of academic 
studies, preparatory to studying the profession of the law ; upon which he entered the 
offi' e of Finch Francis, Esq., then attorney general to the state. 

After a two years' clerkship under Mr. Francis, Mr. Shippen went to England to 
complete his legal acquisitions. After two years of close appHcation to the studies 
of his profession, he was admitted a barrister to the Middle Temple. He then re- 
turned to his native city to commence his career as a lawyer. He opened an office 
in 1751, and soon entered into an honorable and lucrative practice. He seems to 
have had but little to do with the sanguinary movements of the revolution, although 



3i4 CHIEF JUSTICE EDWARD SHIPPEN. 

he took a decided stand with the friends of liberty, and remained throughout the 
struggle an uncompromising patriot. 

In 1776, Pennsylvania adopted her first constitution under the new compact, and, 
on the organization of the government, Mr. Sliij)pen was appointed president of the 
court of common pleas for the county of Philadelphia, and, soon after, the presiding 
judge of the court of quarter sessions for the city and county. Such was the fidelity 
with which he discharged the duties of these high trusts, that, on the more perfect 
reorganization of the state government, in 1790, he was generally looked upon as a 
suitable man to occupy a high legal position. Accordingly, in 1791, he was appointed 
one of the judges of the supreme court of the state — ^an office for which his high 
legal attainments and unspotted reputation preeminently fitted him. 

In 1799, chief justice McKean was elected to the chief magistracy of Pennsylva- 
nia, and immediately appointed judge Shippen as his successor, who entered at 
once upon the discharge of his high duties. His past rich and varied experience ; 
his hirge legal knowledge, together with his high attainments in general literature ; 
his severe and uncompromising love of truth ; his perfect self-possession on the most 
difficult and irritating questions ; the blandness, yet firmness, of his manner when 
addressing the jury or counsel, or questioning the criminal or Vvdtnesses ; the inde- 
pendence and intelligence of his decisions; the firm and inflexible manner in which 
he maintained the rights of all parties to trial, together with the perfect self-respect 
he maintained on every occasion, dignified the office while it conferred its high hon- 
ors on his head. 

In the late autumn of 1805, judge Shippen, becoming conscious tliat the infirmities 
of age were unfitting him for the discharge of the duties of his exalted station, 
gracefully retired from his high office, carrying with him the respect and undiminished 
confidence of the bench, the bar, and the whole state. Although in the sear and yel- 
low leaf, he hoped io spend some years in the pleasant retirement of his family; but 
so it was not willed by Him who ordereih ovir outgoings and our incomings and 
appointeth unto man his hour. On the 16th day of April, 1806, calmly and sweetly 
he passed away, " sustained by an unfaltering trust," and rejoicing in the conscious- 
ness that he had "done what he could" as a child of Ihe Most High and a brother 
of the human family. 

The private character of chief justice Shippen was a model — a rare combination 
of the best elements of human life. Polite, aflable, courteous, respectful to his infe- 
riors as well as his equals, his manner had that charming smack of the ancien regime 
which so preeminently belonged to the gentlemen of the revolution, and which so 
delighted those who were obliged to hold constant intercourse with them. His rep- 
utation was as spotless as his own- ermine; and when he lay down to rest from the 
burden of life, all tongues pronounced his benediction. 




MUS, FRANKLIN. 



IT is much to be regretted that so little has come down to the present day of 
one so intimately connected with the fortunes of that eminent philosopher, states- 
man, and patriot, Benjamin Franklin. The part taken, also, by Mrs. Franklin in the 
important scenes of the revolution makes it the more to be regretted that the record 
of her life is lost. It is a little remarkable that Franklin, who has given with such 
prolixity and particularity all the little minutiae of his own life, should not have 
left behind some imperishable record of the life of a woman whom he sincerely 
respected and loved, and to whom he was so much indebted for his prosperity and 
happiness in life. 

But still, meagre as is the record of the life and character of Mrs. Franklin, and 
few as are the known facts connected with her history, it seems a fitting duty to 
give them a separate record, and do what we can to rescue so much worth from 
the utter oblivion which seems to threaten it. 

Miss Deborah Reed was born in the city of Philadelphia early in the last century. 
Her father seems to have been a thriving man of business, if we may trust to what 
his intelligent son-in-law has hinted in his own Autobiography It is to be presumed 



346 MRS. FRANKLIN. 

that her early education was on a par with other damsels of her age in those years 
of our country's weakness and ignorance. The first intimation we have of her was 
on the occasion of her curious meeting with the future gi-eat man. The circum- 
stance is well known. A vagrant in the streets of the city of her residence, — having 
fled from Boston to escape the anger of an elder brother, to whom he was a bound 
apprentice, — fresh from the vessel in which he had come from New York, his pockets 
stuck full of the little luggage he possessed, a large roll of bread under each arm, he 
passed the door of the father of his future wife munching his breakfast from a third 
roll which he carried in his hand, and staring around him in happy oblivion of all 
the cares of life. In this uncouth plight did she first behold her future husband. But 
her quick eye saw in that noble brow and manly bearing something superior to the 
clown he appeared, and her beating heart told her that he was worthy of her love. 
This newly and suddenly awakened sentiment seems to have found a response in 
ihe bosom of the youtliful printer, and an impression was made then which time 
never obliterated. 

Now it happened, curiously enough, that young Franklin became a lodger in the 
house of Mr. Reed, and spent the first few weeks of his stay in Philadelphia under 
the same roof with his inamorata. His first impressions were deepened and 
confirmed by his intercourse with her family; and after a suitable time he made 
known his feelings and found them reciprocated ; but being in no condition to think 
of being married, they entered into no engagement, satisfied with the knowledge 
that they loved and were beloved by each other. 

Franklin finding it necessary to proceed to London on business connected with the 
establishment of a press in the city he was about to leave, " they exchanged m.utual 
protestations of love and promises of fidelity," and he sailed on his voyage. He 
remained in London for more than a year. Meanwhile Mr. Reed had failed in 
his business, through the rascality of a professed friend, and his daughter, being 
made to believe that her betrothed was unfaithful, and had no idea of ever marrying 
her, was prevailed upon by her friends to renounce him and accept the proposals of 
a worthless fellow of the name of Rogers, to whom she was mamed. We believe 
that Franklin was not free from imputation in this matter, as he himself confesses 
in his Autobiography. Rogers proved to be a miserable vagabond ; and, after a year 
or two, he was obliged to flee to a foreign shore, where he died, leaving his heart- 
broken wife with a child to support. 

On his return to America, Franklin once more engaged in business in Philadelphia, 
and soon began to prosper. He kept up a friendly interco':r 3 with the Reed family, 
and used to visit them often, rendering the father such assistance in his accounts as his 
business permitted. Meanwhile the old affection between her and her quondam lover 
began to revive and strengthen, and they at length concluded to marry. From this 
period the history of her life is intimately connected with that of her illustrious hus- 
band, to whom she became an affectionate v\afe and faithful companion until the day 
of her death. 




Mlj:''/'^- 



, r^vj,-i-" 



CORNWALLIS. 



No name is more intimately associated witii the American independence than 
that of Lord Cornwallis. In her struggles and many defeats, and, at length, 
in the crowning glory at Yorktown, where British power was forever broken in the 
colonies, this name is conspicuous. He was the first marquis, the second earl, and 
the sixth baron of that name, and was born on the last day of the year 1738. After 
having passed a regular course of instruction at Eton School, he entered St. John's 
College, which he left at the age of eighteen, to join the army. 

Here, by his assiduity and readiness in acquiring military knowledge, he obtained 
the rank of captain before he was twenty. In the year 1762, the elder Cornwallis 
dying, the titles of the family fell upon the subject of this memoir, and he became 
a peer, and Entitled to a seat in the House of Lords. In 1765 he was appointed a 
lord of the bed chamber, and about the same time one of the aids to George III. In 
1766 he was raised to the command of the thirty-third regiment of foot, in which 
commission he rendered some service to his country, and was raised to the rank of 
brigadier general. 

In 1776, Cornwallis was given the command of the southern Anglo-American 
army, and sailing for America, landed in New Jersey the same year. Every one is 

11 



3i8 CORNWALLIS. 

familiar with his first successful campaign, and the British victories at Brandywine 
and Long Plains, which resulted in the occupation of Philadelphia by the English 
army, on the 24th of September, 1777. Here Covnwallis made his head quai-ters, 
and was enabled greatly to harass and distress the American army. 

Having received the commission of lieutenant general, in 1779, Cornwallis was 
ordered to the south, whither, with his magnificent and well-appointed army, in com- 
pany with Sir Henry Clinton, he sailed early in that year. The commencement of 
this campaign w^as successful to the English arms. Charleston, South Carolina, was 
taken, and two or three other places of less importance. But a network of military 
operations on the part of the Americans soon involved Cornwallis in inextricable 
meshes. He w^as now left in sole command of the army, and although he had come 
to the Carolinas with great vaunting, he was at length compelled to cast about him 
for means of extrication from the toils which environed him. Surrendering Charles- 
ton from necessity, he maintained a straggling warfare, until with a greatly reduced 
force he was at length hopelessly shut up in Yorktown. Here he adopted every 
measure, and made every exertion which might be expected of a sagacious and 
brave officer to extricate himself; but finding himself in a helpless condition, and 
no succor coming to hand, like a prudent commander he offered to capitulate. On 
the ratification of the capitulation, he led his soldiers forth from the citadel to lay 
their arms at the feet of the victorious Americans. 

This closed the war of 1777, and Cornwallis, finding no further employment for 
his services among " the rebels," returned home, stripped of all his boastful plumes, 
and remained for some time in seclusion. His services were soon once more re- 
quired by his masters, and he entered a new field of operation, where he was far 
more successful. He was appointed governor general of the English colonies in 
India. His administration of the affairs of the English in India was satisfactory 
to the ministry at home, and manifested a good degree of generalship and diplomacy. 

In 1798 he was appointed governor general of Ireland, and in 1805 he was sent 
out to Calcutta once more with the same commission. But his prime was past, 
and the arduous duties of his station, together with the severity of the climate, were 
too much for his constitution. He died at Benares, in October, 1805, in the sixty- 
seventh year of his age. 




AARON BURR. 



AARON BURR, the third Vice President of the United States, by whose hana, 
in mortal combat, fell the exalted Hamilton, was the son of Aaron Burr, second 
president of the College of New Jersey. His mother was the daughter of the cele- 
brated Dr. Edwards, who succeeded Mr. Burr to the presidency of that college. He 
was born at Newark, New Jersey, February 5, 1756. His early, as well as his riper 
life, gave abundant evidence of the truth of the old saw, " Ministers' children," etc. 
Before he was ten years of age he twice ran away from home. This, however, 
may be attributed to the loss of both his parents before three years of his adventu- 
rous life had passed. 

Young Burr entered New Jersey College before he was twelve, and was gradu- 
ated in 1772. While in college he was very studious, and came from that institu- 
tion quite ripe in scholarship for one of his years. In 1775, his interest in the affairs 
of the country led him to join the army raised for the defence of the colonies. He 
went to Cambridge, Massachusetts, then the head quarters of Washington, and 
offered his services. He was accepted, and immediately joined the army under Ar- 
nold, and shared with him the perilous march through the wilderness to Canada. 
On his arrival. General Montgomery made him his aid. He was at his side when 
he fell, and was nearly the only one of- the advance column who escaped. 



360 AARON BURR. 

On his return, Burr was joined to the family of the commander-in-chief; but, for 
some reason which does not appear, left the head quarters soon after, having, by his 
acts, lost forever the confidence and friendship of Washington. From this period 
the hostility of Burr to his former patron was bitter and unceasing. In 1777, he 
was appointed lieutenant colonel, and won the character of a brave and sagacious 
officer. In 1779, his health failing him, he was obliged to throw up his commission 
and retire from the army. 

He then devoted himself to the study of law ; commenced practice at Albany, in 
1782, but soon removed to the city of New York. He became distinguished in his 
profession ; was appointed attorney general of New York in 1789 ; from 1791 to 
1797, he was a member of the United States Senate, and bore a conspicuous part 
as a leader of the democratic or republican party. At the election of President of 
the United States, for the fourth presidential term, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron 
Burr had each seventy-three votes, and the choice was decided by Congress, on the 
thirty-sixth ballot, in favor of Jefferson for President, and Burr for Vice President. 

Colonel Burr was the mortal enemy of nearly all the leading federalists, and a 
bitter opponent to the measures of Washington's administration. Perhaps he hated 
nobody with such cordial hostility as General Hamilton, whom he challenged to 
"the fight of honor." In vain did friends interfere ; Burr would listen to no prop- 
osition but to fight. All the world knows the result. The indignant scorn of the 
community, and the prompt institution of legal measures to investigate the barbarous 
murder, drove Burr from his home and society for a while. He never regained his 
standing in the latter. 

Not long after this he conceived the project of his mad enterprise in the western 
country of the United States ; for which he was at length apprehended and brought 
to Richmond, in August, 1807, on a charge of treason ; and after a long trial, he was 
acquitted. He afterwards returned to the city of New York, practised law to some 
extent, but passed the remainder of his life in comparative obscurity and neglect. 

With the most brilliant talents and most insinuating address, and a tact in con- 
versation and debate rarely equalled. Colonel Burr might have filled a high post of 
honor with credit to himself and advantage to his country, but that he was utterly 
destitute either of true honor or common honesty. A profligate, with a corrupt 
heart, who scrupled at nothing which would satisfy his lust or his ambition, he 
sank lower and lower in the scale of humanity, until on the 14th of September, 
1836, his life went out like a foul exhalation, leaving no fragrant memories behind ; 
hoary without good deeds, being eighty years of age ; and his monumental urn 
filled to overflowing with the blood, and tears, and aching hearts of his too trusting 
victims. 




PEYTON RANDOLPH. 



PEYTON RANDOLPH, a native of Virginia, was born in the year 1723. He 
was descended from one of the oldest and most aristocratic families of ancient 
Virginia, When quite young, in accordance with the custom of such families, he 
was sent to England to acquire his education. After the common preparation at 
Eton he entered Oxford, and pursued his studies there for several years, leaving that 
institution with considerable eclat, and the degree of master of arts. 

After completing his education he returned once more to his native land, and com- 
menced the study of law. He was a severe student, and soon acquired a sound and 
thorough knowledge of his chosen profession, and entered upon its practice in his 
native colony. He rose rapidly in his profession, and so great was his popularity, 
that, in 1756, he was made attorney general for the colony of Virginia. 

At this time, Virginia, in common with the other colonies, was made the scene 
of the most cruel Indian depredations ; smoking ruins and mangled corpses marking 
the savage ferocity of these outraged sons of the forest. Collecting a hundred men 
like himself — brave, enduring, and sagacious — Mr. Randolph bound himself with 
them by a most solemn engagement to march to the frontier and extirpate the tribes 
of Indians who had occasioned them so much difficulty. After a very successful 



352 



PEYTON RANDOLPH 



campaign, in which the savages were taught some wholesome lessons, and many of 
their number slain, the little band returned to their homes. 

Not long after this Mr. Randolph was elected a member of the House of Bur- 
gesses of Virginia, in which capacity he served for many years, and at several ses- 
sions of that body presided over their deliberations with great dignity and suavity. 
His influence in the house was very great, and not exceeded by that of any other 
member. He entered heartily into all the plans for promoting the interests of his 
native colony, and opposed the oppressive measures of the mother country towards 
her transatlantic colonies with his whole power. 

In 1774, Mr. Randolph was elected a delegate to the first Continental Congress, 
and was soon selected by that grave and reverend body to preside over its important 
deliberations. It was no small honor to be seliected to fill this high post, by the men 
who were there assembled, to utter their calm and solemn defiance to the usurpations 
of the mother couhtry. The time had come for the children to rise up in their just 
might, and deny the parent's right any longer to oppress and grind them into the 
dust ; and the assembling of that august body of men was a scene of moral grandeur 
such as the world had never before beheld and has not since witnessed. The ques- 
tion, " Who shall go before us in our solemn assembly?" was an important one, and 
called for the greatest consideration and deliberation. The lot fell on Peyton Ran- 
dolph. The result justified the choice, for he presided with great dignity and firm- 
ness, as well as impartiality, and so far gained the approval of its members, that on 
the assembling of the second Congress, in May, 1775, he was again elected to the 
same office. 

The constitution of Mr. Randolph was never robust, and his arduous duties, to- 
gether with the great excitement he underwent, completely underminded his health, 
and he was obliged to resign his office on the 24th of the same month and return to 
Virginia, carrying with him the regrets of nearly every member of that noble band 
of patriots who had " pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor " to 
the cause of American freedom. John Hancock, of Massachusetts, succeeded Mr 
Randolph in the presidential chair of that Congress, and thus his name, instead of 
that of Peyton Randolph, stands at the head of that illustrious band who signed the 
country's Declaration of Independence. 

Mr. Randolph afterwards took his seat in Congress, but took no active part in its 
proceedings, and on the 22d of October following he suffered a stroke of apoplexy, 
which terminated his useful career in the fifty -third year of his age. 




GEORGE WHITEEIELD. 



THIS great and devoted itinerant preacher was born in Gloucester, England, 
December 16, 1714. Being naturally of a studious and serious turn of mind, 

he was early put to school, where he made striking proficiency in his studies. His 

father, dying when he was a child, left his mother in charge of an inn, to the care of 

which he was called from school as soon as he could be of any use to his mother. 

This life of a publican was, however, by no means suited to his taste, and at the age 

of eighteen he entered Oxford. 

While in college, young Whitefield made the acquaintance of the brothers Wesley, 

John and Charles, whose pious zeal and pure lives attracted his love and admiration. 
These young men adopted certain strict rules and methods of life, which reached all 

their habits and duties. They became the nucleus and founders of a religious sect, 
which, from the rigid habits they adopted, received the sobriquet of Methodists, a 
name afterwards adopted and gloried in by the sect, and continued in both hemi- 
spheres to this day. Young Whitefield joined heart and hand with these youthful 
zealots, and on leaving his college he took orders, in 1736, and immediately com- 
menced preaching. His first sermon was delivered in the church of the Bishop of 
Gloucester, and produced a powerful effect. Complaint was made to the bishop 



351 GEORGE WHITEFIELD. 

that a number of persons were driven mad by it. " I only wish," replied the good 
prelate, " that the madness may last." 

In 1738, Mr. Whitefield came to this country, whither one of the Wesleys had pre- 
ceded him. He landed at Savannah, Georgia, where he labored with unremitting 
zeal and diligence for nearly a year, preaching and travelling night and day, and 
meeting with abundant success. Returning to England, he received ordination as a 
priest, by Bishop Benson, in January, 1739. In November following, he again ar- 
rived in America, and travelled through the Southern and Middle States, preaching 
the word and baptizing thousands who were converted by the eloquence of his ap- 
peals. All classes were drawn to his ministry. His rare and peculiar eloquence 
seems to have been magical, and it was nothing uncommon for him to preach in the 
open fields to audiences varying from one to ten thousand persons. He visited 
New England and New York, and established churches every where. 

Repose was never sought by Mr. Whitefield. He followed the impulses of his 
generous nature, never doubting that he was listening to the teaching of Providence 
and the voice of conscience. This forbade him to remain long in any one place or 
one country. In 1741, he sailed again for England, returning to this country in 
1744. He remained here this time between three and four years, his popularity 
abating not a jot, and the violent persecution which had been coeval with his min- 
istry keeping due pace with his popularity. Every species of indignity was heaped 
upon him by the profane, and most of the churches and ministers " in regizlar stand- 
ing-^^ closed their pulpits to his ingress, and vilified his character and his religion. 
Nothing troubled, he labored on, rewarded by the apparent fruits of his preaching, 
and " the consciousness that he was serving God and saving sinners." 

Mr. Whitefield crossed the Atlantic nine times, and landed on our shores for the 
last time, November 30, 1769. During all this time, both in England and America, 
as well as on shipboard, his zeal and his exertions flagged not for an instant, and he 
actually " died in harness " at Newburyport, Massachusetts, on the 30th of Septem- 
ber, 1770, aged fifty-six years. 

Perhaps no public speaker has lived within the last ten centuries who has had 
such immense power over the hearts and passions of his auditory as this eccentric 
preacher. Kean, the celebrated tragedian, used to say of him, that " he was the only 
man who knew the straight way to the very depths of the human soul;" and he 
once told Whitefield that he would give him one thousand pounds if he would teach 
him to pronounce the interjection " O ! " with his own effect. His benevolence and 
personal goodness were sincere. Cowper thus commemorates these traits of his 
character with as much justice as beauty : — 

" He loved the world that hated him ; the tear 
That dropped upon his Bible was sincere ; 
Assailed by scandal and the tongue of strife, 
His only answer was a blameless life ; 
While he that forged, and he that threw the dart, 
Had each a brother's interest in his heart." 




FRANCIS HOPKINSON 



ONE of that heroic band who declared to the world that the people of the United 
States " are, and of right ought to be, free and independent," and who pledged 
their lives and all that they possessed to maintain that declaration, was the son of 
Thomas Hopkinson, an intimate friend and coadjutor of Franklin, and was born in 
the city of Philadelphia, in 1738. In 1752, the father died, but not until he had 
provided for the education of his eldest son, the subject of this notice, who, soon 
after that event, entered the college of Philadelphia, an institution which his father 
had greatly aided in founding. 

Having been graduated with a high standing, he entered at once the office of Ben- 
jamin Cheever, Esq., then attorney general for the State of Pennsylvania. Under 
the care of this eminent jurist, he went through the regular course of reading for the 
practice of his chosen profession. Instead of entering at once into the practice of 
the law, he devoted himself to the acquisition of an elegant literature. After a few 
years of such study, he went to London and placed himself under the charge of 
the Bishop of Worcester, a great uncle on the maternal side. Here he remained 
two years, making the best use of the great facilities thus afforded him for storing 
his mind with scientific and classical knowledge. He used his pen also in both 

12 



356 FRANCIS HOPKINSON. 

verse and prose, in which the traits of his mind were strikingly manifest — wit, taste, 
and a pure morality. 

Renouncing the flattering prospects held out to him in England, Mr. Hopkinson 
returned to America in 1768, and shortly after married Miss Ann Borden, of Bor- 
dentown. New Jersey. He found the country in a state of agitation on the 
great questions out of which grew the revolutionary contest. Without hesitation, 
he fluno- himself into the ranks of the patriots, and defended their' righteous cause 
with o-reat vigor and power throughout the whole of that bitter controversy. His 
power at satire was very great, and he let no subject escape which afforded scope 
for his pungent wit. This was not of that coarse kind which delighted in vulgar epi- 
thets and doggerel rhymes, but it was elegant and refined. He never wrote or spoke 
a word that could call a blush to the cheek of the most delicate lady, or give pain 
to the most sensitive fastidiousness. 

Mr. Hopkinson was a member of the Continental Congress which uttered the 
Declaration of Independence, and his name may be found on that immortal docu- 
ment. About this time he received an appointment in the loan office ; and in 1779, he 
was appointed judge of the admiralty for the State of Pennsylvania. His decisions, 
while in that office, give evidence of an acute judgment and a profound acquaintance 
with the laws pertaining to that branch of legal jurisdiction, as well as the nicest 
literary acquisitions and general knowledge. 

When the independence of the country was at length achieved, it was found that 
we were a people, free, indeed, but with few or none of the necessary elements of a 
nation. Without a currency, or any basis to sustain one, without commerce, 
having no manufactures, agriculture almost wholly neglected, without even the form 
of a national government, our desolate and deplorable condition appalled the hearts 
of those who had never yet quailed before the awful storm of war which had 
desolated the fair face of our country. But this was not a time for idle fears ajid 
idle speculation. A few brave spirits there were, who, seeing the end from the 
beginning, had never faltered, never doubted. Under their powerful and patriotic 
guidance order began to appear, and one after another these glorious institutions, 
which are our boast and the admiration of the world, appeared. Among these noble 
men, few labored with more indefatigable zeal than Judge Hopkinson. He was an 
active member of the convention of 1787 which met in Philadelphia to draught the 
constitution, and also of that other convention which ratified it. 

This was followed, of course, by the abolition of the state courts of admiralty, 
and Mr. Hopkinson lost his office. But when Washington was chosen to open the 
administration of the new government, his sagacious mind saw the fitness of em- 
ploying a man of such varied attainments, and he appointed Mr. Hopkinson judge 
of the District Court for the State of Pennsylvania. This was done in,1790. But he 
did not long live to enjoy the honor or to perform the duty, for he was stricken with 
epilepsy, and died on the 9th of May, 1791, in the fifty-third year of his age. 




BRANDT 



COLONEL JOSEPH BRANDT, an Onandago Indian chief, of the MohawK 
tribe, and whose Indian name was Thayondaneca^ or Tayadanoga, signifying a 
branl, was born on the banks of the Mohawk, about the year 1742. It has been 
asserted that he was a half-breed, and that the blood of Sir William Johnston 
warmed his veins. From the loose and free manner in which this gentleman lived 
while with the Indians, it is by no means improbable, although the assertion needs 
corroboration. Sir William himself is silent on the subject, while it is well known 
that he took the deepest interest in the young demi-savage, and sent him to " Moor's 
Charity School," under the care of Dr. Wheelock, in Hanover, New Hampshire, 
where he acquired a fair education, and which he made use of in translating por- 
tions of the New Testament into the Mohawk language, for the benefit of his 
brethren of the forest. 

In 1775, Brandt went to England, where he received considerable attention, and 
where he was offered a colonel's commission in the British army. Here his mind 
was carefully filled with those ideas of American resistance then prevalent at the 
court of St. James. His respect for England, and his hatred of the rebels, as the 
insurgents were called, was evidently sincere and strong ; and he came back to 



358 BRANDT. 

America to become a powerful agent of British cruelty and wrong. This sentiment 
of loyalty to the king was, doubtless, strengthened and confirmed by his intercourse 
with Johnston, who was known to be an enemy to the American revolution. 

Associated with Colonel Butler, himself more a savage than Brandt, under com- 
mand of St. Leger, he commenced his bloody career at the investment of Fort 
Stanwix. Butler commanded a band of tories, whose acts of cruelty threw those 
of Brandt and his lawless hordes into the shade. In the bloody battle of Oriskana, 
where over four hundred patriots fell under the sure aim of the Indian's rifle and 
tory's musket, Brandt gave evidence of the horrible effect which w^as to be expected 
from his cool sagacity and savage love of blood. General Herkimer, who com- 
manded the American forces in this battle, received his death wound. Being unable 
to keep the field, he ordered his saddle to be placed on a knoll where he could wit- 
ness the fight, issuing his orders with as much calmness as if nothing had happened. 
On being expostulated with for the unnecessary exposure of his person, " I will face 
the enemy^'' was his brave reply; and, taking his pipe from his pocket, he deliber- 
ately lighted it, and continued calmly to smoke until the contest ended. 

After a succession of minor bloody tragedies, Brandt, in 1787-8, was the chief 
spirit engaged in the horrible massacre at Wyoming, where hundreds fell on the field 
of battle, or were inhumanly butchered after surrendering. " The Indians fought 
like infuriated devils," says an historian, " and the tories like incarnate fiends." 
Butler, " the infamous, ^^ when asked by the besieged Americans what were the best 
terms he could offer, diabolically replied, ^^ The hatchet " But "the hatchet" was a 
merciful dispensation to those who were its victims ; others were roasted, or flayed 
alive, some impaled, some had their tongues cut out, and were otherwise maimed, 
while, to finish the scene, " the remainder of the men, women, and children were shut 
up in the houses, and the demons of hell glutted their vengeance in beholding their 
destruction in one general conflagration." Scores were slain by Brandt's own hand, 
— ''the monster Brandt," — who translated the Bible into bad Mohawk, and won 
tne eulogies of many devout Christians, who seemed to think his cruelties all atoned 
for in this slovenly translation. 

Later, at Cherry Valley, these horrors were renewed, and followed up until the 
close of the war. But Brandt, whose forecast was greater than that of his brother 
chiefs, foreseeing that the progress of civilization was irresistible, and that to oppose 
it was self-destruction sooner or later, began now to pursue a more pacific policy, and 
did his utmost to prevail upon the various tribes to agree to the propositions of the 
whites for a permanent basis of peace. 

King George conferred on Brandt a valuable tract of land on the shores of Lake 
Ontario, whither he retired and spent the remainder of his life after the fashion of 
the English. He married a half-breed woman, a daughter of Colonel Croghan, who 
never liked his new mode of life, and who, at his death, resumed the blanket, and 
returned to the wilds where she was born and reared. They had lived together 
without the sanction of the church, and had several children, when, in 1770, they 
were regularly and legally united in wedlock. He died at his residence on the 24th 
of November, 1807. 




MAJOR GENERAL FRANCIS MARION. 



BRAVE, chivalric, glorious old Marion, whose "feats of arms" remind one o^ 
the age of the gallant old chevaliers in the times of the crusades ! He was 
born at Winyam, near Georgetown, South Carolina, in 1732, the natal year of 
Washington. His father was poor, and he was obliged to spend his youth in the 
most laborious employment; hence his education was sadly neglected. Having 
acquired a passion for the sea, at the age of sixteen he cured himself of it by mak- 
ing a voyage to the West Indies, in which he suffered shipwreck, and barely escaped 
with his life, in a state of starvation. 

After his father died, in 1758, he went to St. John's, and settled at a place called 
Pond Bluff. The next year he entered the service of the state against the Indians, 
in Captain Moultrie's company of horse, where he is described as " an active, brave, 
and hardy soldier, and an excellent officer." 

In 1775, he was chosen to the Provincial Congress of South Carolina, from St. 
John's. While a member of this body, the news of the battle of Lexington arrested 
their proceedings, and was like a flake of fire in a magazine. Instantly, with that 
prompt patriotism which ever distinguished this chivalrous state, it was resolved to 
raise two regiments of infantry and one of cavalry ; Marion, himself, receiving the 



360 MAJOR GENERAL FRANCIS MARION. 

commission of captain in the latter, which was under command of the brave Colonel, 
afterward General Moultrie. 

At the affair on Sullivan's Island, Marion acted as major, and for his bravery and 
coolness on that occasion he was raised to a colonelcy, and Moultrie to that of brig- 
adier general. He was with Lincoln and D'Estaing when the army suffered such 
signal defeat in Georgia, and retired with Lincoln to South Carolina, while D'Es- 
taing took refuge on board his ships at Savannah. 

At the siege and capture of Charleston, Marion was prevented from taking part 
in the matter by an injury received in his leg. Before he had quite recovered the use 
of the limb, he made his way into Virginia, where he met Gates with an army has- 
tening to the relief of South Carolina. He immediately joined himself to the army, 
and having no command, he accepted an invitation from De Kalb to become one of 
his aids. The fatal battle of Camden soon followed, and Marion with a handful of 
thirty men escaped. With these brave companions he determinea ,,o commence a 
partisan warfare, which was one of the most romantic and brilliant ever recorded by 
the pen of the historian, and our only regret is that we have not room for its record. 
His first exploit was to capture a British guard of ninety men, which had the charge 
of two hundred American prisoners, whom he set at liberty. He then cut up a party 
of tories of forty-nine men, took the whole of their ammunition, baggage, arms, and 
horses without the loss of a man. By the end of August he numbered one hundred 
and fifty men, and having received the commission of brigadier general from Gov- 
ernor Rutlege, of South Carolina, he was directed to watch the movements of the 
enemy, and look after the general interests of the south-western portion of the state. 

This was during the bloody and disgraceful march of Cornwallis, whose track was 
marked with the wrecks of ruined matrons and maidens, the bloody corpses of aged 
men and young children, of burning cottages and wasted plantations. This valiant 
British general had proclaimed the gibbet to every man that should aid the cause 
of his country in anyway, and the trees on his route gave evidence, by the dangling 
carcasses suspended therefrom, of the horrible resolution with which his bloody threat 
was daily executed. 

But Marion and his braves kept up a stout heart, and did the country great ser 
vice in cutting off* supplies and harassing the operations of Cornwallis, who was at 
length shut up in Yorktown. 

In 1782, Marion was chosen a senator to the state legislature. But he soon re- 
tired altogether from public life, and removing to his plantation at St. John's, he 
married, and passed the balance of his life in the pursuits of agriculture and domes- 
tic peace. He died on the 27th of February, 1795. 




MES. ESTHER REED. 



ESTHER DE BERDT, the only daughter of Dennis De Berdt, a British mer- 
chant, was born in London, England, on the 22d of October, 1746. De Berdi 
was engaged in the colonial trade, and was a staunch friend of the colonists in Amer- 
ica. With a zeal and strength rarely found in one of her sex, Miss De Berdt sym- 
pathized in all their efforts to throw otY the oppressive yoke which George III. and 
his ministers were striving to fix on tlie neck of young America. Her youth was 
spent under strong religious influences, and she early became a devoted pupil of the 
Wesleyan school, and a decided admirer of its simple but self-denying code. 

Among the numerous American guests at De Berdt's table was Joseph Reed, of 
New Jersey, who had resorted to London for the purpose of completing his prep- 
aration for the legal profession. Mr. Reed was about twenty-three, accomplished, 
well educated, and possessed of an uncommon degree of intelligence ; and the result 
of this propinquity was a mutual passion. Opposition being raised to their union, 
Mr. Reed, after completing his studies, returned to America, and opened an office in 
his native village of Trenton, New Jersey. He at once rose to distinction in his 
profession, and entered into an extensive practice as a lawyer. But in the midst of 
all his prosperity, a void was in his soul. She whom he loved so well was in another 



362 MRS. ESsT HER REED. 

land, whose rulers were at enmity with his own, and between whom a deadly war 
was already going on. That she should follow his fortunes to his own country, he 
dared cherish not even the most distant hope ; and nothing was left but to go to her, 
even to his own expatriation. In 1769, Mr. Reed reached England. But what a 
change had five years produced ! De Berdt, through the political disturbances pro- 
duced in the colonial business, had become a. bankrupt ; and chagrined and over- 
whelmed with his reverses, he had been hurried to an untimely grave. No further 
obstacles appearing, our lovers were privately married, in St. Luke's Church, on the 
31st of May, 1770, and, in October following, Mrs. Reed sailed with her husband 
for her home in the new world. 

On his arrival in America, Mr. Reed removed his office to Philadelphia, then the 
great metropolis and centre of attraction in the colonies. But these were troublous 
times ; and soon the flames of the revolution, fanned by the excessive folly and cru- 
elty of the mother country, burst forth with relentless fury, and called all true patriots 
to the field. Mr. Reed was among the first to obey the summons of his country to 
her defence. With Washington, in 1775, he went to Cambridge, and with him 
followed the track of war northward, and then southward, wherever the mighty 
current impelled. 

All this time his young and delicate wife was left at home, with two infant chil- 
dren, and all the domestic arrangements of his house under her charge. But such 
was her strong attachment to the American cause, that she complained not a word, 
and showed a cheerful face to her friends and the world : her tears she saved for the 
night-cradle of her sweet babes, over which she poured out her troubled spirit in 
agonizing prayer for the protection of her husband, and the success of the cause of 
the oppressed patriots. 

When the seat of war drew near to Philadelphia, Mrs. Reed removed to Burling- 
ton, in New Jersey, and afterwards, to a little farm house near the village of Evesham, 
where she remained in comparative safety from the danger threatened to the sur- 
rounding country by the approach of the English army. But when they were 
checked at Trenton and Princeton, Philadelphia being relieved from the presence of 
the army, she once more returned to her old home in that city, only to enjoy a brief 
respite from the horrors of war. In 1777, the city fell into the hands of the enemy, 
and Mrs. Reed, with her family, took refuge in Flemington, in the southern part of 
New Jersey. After the battle of Monmouth, and the evacuation of Philadelphia by 
the British, she returned once more to her home, to leave it again only at the sum- 
mons of the king of terrors. 

In 1778 her husband was elected president of Pennsylvania, and the following 
year her youngest son was born, who was christened George Washington Reed, and 
who died in the service of his country, a prisoner of war, in Jamaica, in 3813. It 
was at this time that she rendered so great assistance to the American cause, by her 
active zeal in forming and presiding over the movements of the famous Ladies' 
Association, for the relief of the army ; and it was in the midst of these useful and 
honorable services rendered to her country, that she was summoned to her reward 
on high. She died at Philadelphia on the 18th of September, 1780, aged thirty-four 
years. 




GENERAL JOSEPH REED. 



JOSEPH REED was born in Trenton, New Jersey, on the 27th of August, 1741. 
After the usual preparation, he entered Princeton College in 1753, being then 
but twelve years of age, and was graduated in 1757. He studied law with Eichard 
Stockton, Esq., for several years ; and at the age of nineteen, he went to England, and 
entered the Temple, where he remained two years, to complete his legal studies. 
He then returned to America, and took up his residence in his native village, where 
he opened an office, and soon rose to distinction, entering into a wide practice of his 
profession. 

While in Londo.i, Mr. Reed became deeply smitten with the personal and mental 
charms of Miss Esther De Berdt, the only daughter of a merchant deeply engaged 
in the colonial trade, and withal a staunch patriot and friend to the American cause. 
His poverty, and the condition of things in this country, induced the father to with- 
hold his consent to the union. Having sworn eternal fidelity, and promising to 
correspond, the lovers parted, and Reed returned, as we have seen, to his home in 
New Jersey. Five years passed, and as there was faint prospect of a better state of 
things, he determined to see his mistress once more, and try his eloquence on the 
stony heart of the father. On his arrival, he found that De Berdt had failed in his 

13 



Se4 GENERAL JOSEPH REED. 

business, and had died of grief and mortification ; leaving the once rich heiress poor 
and dependent. To arrange the marriage, which was solemnized in St. Luke's 
Church, on the 31st of May, 1770, and to make all the necessary preparations for 
a return to his native country, with his beautiful bride and her mother, was the work 
of a few weeks ; and in November following, he landed in Philadelphia, to which 
place he removed his office the same winter. 

Mr. Reed now rose rapidly, not only in his profession, but as a public man. His 
fine talents and brilliant address, together with his burning patriotism, and hate of 
British oppression, made him a leader of the troublous times in which he lived. He 
was made president of the first popular convention called in Philadelphia, to address 
and expostulate with the English government. He was also one of the famous com- 
mittee of correspondence, in Philadelphia. When Washington was sent to Cam- 
bridge by the Continental Congress, in 1775, he accompanied him as an aid, and 
remained by his side throughout that campaign. 

In 1776, Congress appointed him adjutant general in the continental army, where 
he proved himself a brave and efficient officer, and rendered good service in the cause 
of liberty. He remained with the army until the latter part of 1777, when he was 
elected a member of Congress from Philadelphia, where his services proved as valu- 
able as they had been in the army. 

It required men of iroii courage, as well as of profound statesmanship, — of high 
moral, as well as physical courage, — to sit in those high and responsible places ; 
men who were actuated by no narrow or selfish purposes, but who were ready to 
pledge their lives, their property, and their honor to the maintenance of their just 
and natural rights ; for they were tempted sorely by most dazzling offers of place, 
and power, and wealth from the English enemies. General Reed was among the 
number sought to be bribed. " Ten thousand guineas and the best post in the 
gift of government," was the tempting bribe, if he would cease his resistance to 
British oppression. '•'' I am not ivorth piirc/iasing;''^ was his patriotic and indignant 
reply, " but such as I am, the King- of Great Britain is not rich enough to do it.^'' 
Money could not seduce, or threat or suffering terrify, such men as these ; and lib- 
erty and conscience were safe in their single and honest hands. 

In 1778 he was chosen the first president of Pennsylvania, in which office he re- 
mained until 1781, when he resigned, and returned once more to the practice of the 
law. When in office and out of it. General Reed retained the confidence and re- 
spect of all classes of his fellow-citizens. His accomjilished and heroic wife died in 
1780, and from this time a rooted sorrow dwelt in his heart, and doubtless aided in 
hastening his death. Four years after this event, he went to England in search of 
health, but returned without finding it, and died the following year at the age of 
forty-two. He left one son, born just before the death of his mother, who entered 
the navy, and had the command of the Vixen. She was taken by the British, and 
carried into Jamaica, where he died, while a prisoner of war, in 1813. 

General Reed left behind him a memory fragrant of manly virtues and noble 
deeds. 




MAJOR GENERAL CHARLES LEE. 



CHARLES LEE was born in Wales, m 1731. His father was an oliioer 
in the British army, and at an extremely early age he received a commis- 
sion in the same army. He was very ambitious to acquire military and classical 
knowledge. He was skilful in Latin and Greek, and most of the continental living 
tongues, while he was yet a youth. In 1756 he was sent to America ; was at Ti- 
conderoga when Abercronibie was defeated, and engaged in most of the conflicts 
of the English with the French and Indians. Forming an attachment with the 
Mohawk Indians, he was made a chief of that tribe, and passed some time with 
them. He was christened with the name of " Boiling Water" — a name quite ap- 
propriate to his effervescing character. 

In 1762 he went to Portugal as colonel in the army of Burgoyne, where he much 
distinguished himself. On his return to England, he took a decided stand against 
the stamp act, and all other measures oppressive to the American colonies. Uneasy 
and restless, he could not remain quiet in one place for any length of time, and im- 
pelled by this demon to his peace, he crossed over to the continent, and spent three 
years in roaming all over Europe. While abroad he fought a duel, and killed his 
antagonist, himself losing two fingers. He entered the service of the King of Po- 



008 MAJOR GENERAL CHARLES LEE 

land, in which he remained two years ; after which he accompanied the king's am- 
bassador to Constantinople, and went thence to Paris. 

In 177o, this singular man came to America, and travelled throughout the colo- 
nies, urging resistance to British oppression. He became acquainted with Gates, by 
whose counsel he was induced to purchase a large and valuable tract of land in 
Berkeley county, Virginia. In 1775 he threw up his commission in the English army, 
and accepted a commission from Congress of major general, and accompanied 
Washington to Cambridge. Early in the ensuing year^ he was despatched to New 
York to assist in the defence of that city and the Hudson River, which duty he 
executed with a discretion and vigor which greatly strengthened the hearts of the 
patriots, and carried terror into the bosoms of the tories. 

The year following he was sent to the south, and put in command of that portion 
of our army, where his energetic and vigorous measures were speedily manifest in 
the improvement of the soldiers in discipline and appearance. He remained here 
not a great while, as the perilous situation of the northern army required his pres- 
ence, and he was ordered forthwith, and with all despatch, to join Washington, then 
in Pennsylvania. This order he at lirst slighted, and then slowly and reluctantly 
complied with ; and while on his tardy way through New Jersey, was surprised and 
taken by a British colonel, who bore him off a prisoner to New York. 

In May, 1778, General Lee was exchanged for General Prescott, who had been 
taken at Newport. The battle of Monmouth speedily followed, in which he was 
accused of insubordination, and disobedience to the commander-in-chief, who severe- 
ly reprimanded him on the spot. This led to a challe}ige on the part of Lee, for 
which he was immediately arrested. He had his trial before a court martial, for 
disobedience and disrespect to the commander-in-chief, was found guilty, and sus- 
pended from the army for one year, which finding Congress sanctioned. 

Disappointed and soured, he retired to his farm in Berkeley county, where he re- 
sided for a couple of years in a style of living suited to a savage, holding little com- 
munion with any thing but his books and his dogs. Yearning, at length, for society, 
he sold his farm and his dogs, and removed to Philadelphia, where he took up his 
residence at an inn, and was speedily seized with a fever, which terminated his bois- 
terous life on the 2d of October, 1782. His last words were, " Stanil by me, my 
brave grenadiers^ 

General Lee was a man of morose temper, slovenly habits, and a foul tongue. 
He hated religion in all its forms ; and in his last will, written just before his death, 
he says, " I desire most earnestly that I may not be buried in any church or church- 
yard, or within a mile of any Presbyterian or Anabaptist meeting house ; for since I 
have resided in this country, I have kept so much bad company while living, thai I 
do not choose to continue it when dead." 




SAMUEL HOTKINS, D. D. 



THIS celebrated Calvinistic divine, the father of the New England sect called 
Hopkinsians, was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, on the 17th of September, 
1721. The first fifteen years of his life were spent on the paternal farm, in a state 
of primeval innocence, rarely, if ever, equalled. It is said of him that during this 
period he never heard a profane oath. He prepared for college under the care of 
Rev. John Graham, of Woodbury, and at the age of sixteen, in 1737, he entered 
Yale College as freshman, graduating in 1741. While in college he publicly pro- 
fessed religion, and after leaving New Haven, lived in a very secluded state at his 
father's house for a number of months. He studied divinity with Dr. Edwards, of 
Northampton. He was ordained at Great Barrington, Massachusetts, December 28, 
1743. The town contained but thirty families, and they were scarcely able to give 
him a support; when, in 1768, a new society having sprung up, he was compelled 
to resign his pastorate, which he did by consent of an ecclesiastical council, in 1769. 
]Mr. Hopkins then went to Newport, Rhode Island, where he was again called to 
take charge of a parish. Here he labored with great zeal, until his society was dis- 
persed by the British soldiery during the war of the revolution. After preaching a 
year each in Newburyport, Massachusetts, Canterbury and Stamford, Connecticut, 



370 SAMUEL HOPKINS, D. D. 

he returned to his old charge in Newjiort. But the effects of the war upon his 
church and society, as upon the whole country, had been disastrous, and tiicy were 
able to give him but a meagre support. Such, however, was his attachment to his 
people that he would not leave them, and declined a much more flattering call from 
the church in Middleboro'. Here he lived during the remainder of his life, con- 
tented with the pittance doled out to him ])y his parish, and the gifts of a few per- 
sonal friends, without whose assistance his family must have suffered for the want 
of the necessaries of life. 

Near the close of his life Dr. Hopkins suffered from a stroke of paralysis, from 
which, however, he recovered sufficiently to be able to preach, but which terminated 
his life on the 20th of December, 1803, at the great age of eighty-two. 

As Dr. Hopkins was the founder of a new sect called " Hopkinsians,^' it may be 
as well here, in conclusion of this article, to transcribe his views, that it may be 
seen what construction he put upon the commonly accepted doctrine of Calvinism, 
called "The Five Points of Calvinism." We quote the words of his biographer, 
Rev. William Allen, A. M. : — 

" With respect to his views of divine truth, he embraced the Calvinistic doctrines: 
and it is principally by the consequences which he drew from these doctrines that 
his name has been rendered famous. He fully admitted the Calvinistic doctrine of 
the entire depravity of the human heart, and the sinfulness of all the doings of the 
unregenerate ; but his discerning mind perceived the discordance between this doc- 
trine and the preaching of some of the Calvinistic divines, who exhorted the un- 
regenerate as such to perform certain acts as the appointed way to obtain that grace, 
which should renew their hearts and make them holy. If men before conversion 
could do nothing that was pleasing to God, he concluded they could do nothing to 
procure the influences of the Holy Spirit. Instead, therefore, of exhorting sinners 
to use the means of grace in order to obtain the divins assistance to enable them to 
repent, when it was acknowledged that in the use of the means of grace they would 
be entirely sinful, he thought it a sacred duty, incumbent on the ministers of the 
gospel, to imitate the preaching of the Lord Jesus, their Master, and to call upon 
men immediately to repent, and yield themselves to the love of God. He thought 
that religious advantages, if in the use of them the unregenerate were not converted, 
would but increase guilt, as in this case there would be a greater resistance to the 
truth. Another sentiment, which is considered as one of the peculiar sentiments of 
Dr. Hopkins, is that the inability of sinners is moral, and not natural ; but this is 
only saying, that their inability consists in disinclination of heart or opposition of 
will to what is good. Combining the Calvinislic doctrine, that God has foreordained 
whatsoever comes to pass, with his views of the nature of sin as consisting entirely 
in the intention or disposition of the mind, he inferred that it was no impeachment 
upon the character of the most righteous Disposer of all events to say, not merely 
that he decreed the existence of sin, but that he exerted his own power to produce 
jt. The design being benevolent, he contended that no more iniquity could be at- 
tached to this act than to the bare permission of sin. This is another of his pecu- 
liarities. From his views of the nature of holiness, as consisting in disinterested 
benevolence, he also inferred that a Christian should be willing to perish forever, to 
be forever miserable, if it should be necessary for the glory of God and the good of 
the universe that he should encounter this destruction." 




BARON STEUBEN. 



,F this brave officer, to whom the American army of the revolution is so much 
indebted for what little of discipline it attained, nothing is known, until we find 
him serving as aid in the army of Frederic, King of Prussia. His birthplace is 
supposed to have been in Suabia, in Germany, where he inherited an estate from 
his father. Becoming dissatisfied with the services of the Prussian Uing, he resigned 
his commission in the army, and after spending a short time in Paris, he embarked, 
under an assumed name and with the avowed purpose of serving the cause of lib- 
erty in America, on board a French ship, at Marseilles, and landed at Portsmouth, 
New Hampshire, on the 1st of December, 1777. He made the most liberal ofFers to 
Congress, which were accepted, and he was immediately ordered to join the Amer- 
ican army, then lying in winter quarters at Valley Forge, bearing the commission of 
inspector general. 

Baron Steuben found the army in a most deplorable condition ; the soldiers desti- 
tute of clothing, arms, and almost every thing which constitutes an army. It was 
enough to strike dismay into any heart less stout than his. His utter ignorance of 
our language rendered his situation only the more hopeless. On the first parade 
confusion was worse confounded, from the soldiers not vmderstanding the orders, and 



372 BAROX STEUBEN. 

being utterly unused to the new movements of the baron, who was also favst losing 
his patience, when Captain Walker, of the New York fourth, tendered his services 
as ail interpreter of his orders. " If I had seen an angel from heaven," said the 
baron, vears afterwards, " I should not have been more rejoiced." Walker immedi- 
atelv became his aid, and was rarely from his side afterwards. From this time the 
discipline and tactics of the army began rapidly to improve. Every fair day the 
troops were mustered at daylight, and underwent a most thorough scrutiny and 
severe drill. Every defect was noticed and rebuked, while every efTort to do well re- 
ceived the baron's smile and approval. As almost a matter of necessity, he some- 
times censured his men when they deserved it not. Whenever he discovered this, 
he always made frank and manly reparation. Having ordered a lieutenant of Col- 
onel Jackson's regiment to the rear in disgrace for a fault of which he deemed hira 
guilty, and shortly after learning his innocence, "Desire Lieutenant Gibbons to come 
to the front," said he to his colonel. " Sir," said the baron, when he appeared, "the 
fault which was made by throwing the line into confusion, might, in the presence of 
an enemy, have proved fatal. I arrested you as its supposed author. I have learned 
my mistake, and believe you blameless. I ask your pardon : return to your com- 
mand. I would not deal unjustly by any, much less by one whose character as an 
officer is so respectable." During this speech the baron uncovered his venerable 
head, on which the rain fell in a continued torrent. 

Having received the sanction of the war department and Congress, Steuben en- 
tered upon a more enlarged plan of improving the army, the importance of which 
was soon manifest in the success of our arms at Moimiouth. His selection of his 
aids evinced great forecast and discrimination. They made a happy family — all of 
whom loved the baron as a father ; and although, when on duty, he allowed not the 
slightest approach to familiarity, yet while in barracks the youngest could approach 
him with the utmost freedom. 

In 1778, Baron Steuben prepared his admirable treatise on military training, at 
the request of the commander-in-chief, which, for many years, was considered the 
standard in the army and the states militia. 

Baron Steuben took part in most of the movements of the army during the rem- 
nant of the war, rendering such impoi'tant service as to receive the approval of the 
governor and legislature of Virginia, as well as of Congress and Washington. At 
the close of the war, he, in common with other officers and soldiers of the revolu- 
tion, found great difficulty in obtaining payment for their services ; and the baron 
built him a log house on land granted him by New York, near where Utica now 
stands, where he passed the remainder of his days in comparative comfort and quiet, 
and where he died on the 28th of November, 1794. " The highly-polished man- 
ners of the baron were graced by the most noble feelings of the heart. His hand, 
open as day to melting charity, closed only in the grasp of death." 




JOHN TRUMBULL. 



JOHN TRUMBULL was the youngest son of the first Governor Trumbull, of 
Connecticut, and was born at Lebanon, Connecticut, June 6, 1756. He was 
fitted for college under private tuition, and entered Harvard as junior at sixteen, in 
1772, graduating the follo^^dng year. Being apt to learn, he bad a good deal of 
leisure in college, and spent his time in copying the pictures he found there. On 
leaving college, his love of the arts led him to pay a visit to Copley, then having 
his studio at Boston, and so much was he struck with the pompous splendor of thai 
great painter, that he at once became fired with a desire and determination to dedi- 
cate himself to that pursuit. His first attempt beyond copying was his picture of 
the " Battle of Cannse," and his next the " Judgment of Brutus." 

These labors occurred just as the "foundations of the mighty political deep" 
were broken up, and our youthful painter laid aside his palette and brush for the 
sword and uniform of a soldier. He was chosen adjutant to the first Connecticut 
regiment, and was stationed at Roxbury, near the camp of Washington, who availed 
himself of his services in sketching the position of the British. In August, 1775, 
he was made aid-de-camp to Washington, and soon after major of brigade. He 
went with the army to New York, and accompanied Gates to Ticonderoga, with 
the commission of colonel and adjutant general. 15 



374 JOHN TRUMBULL. 

At the close of the campaign of 1776, General Gates being ordered to join the 
main army under Washington behind the Delaware, Colonel Trumbull accompanied 
him, and arrived in season to assist at the battle of Trenton, after which he marched 
with Arnold to Rhode Island, and went into winter quarters at Providence. In 
March following he received his commission as adjutant general, but dated in Sep- 
tember instead of June. Piqued at this discrepancy, he remonstrated with Congress 
in a laconic and arbitrary manner, and after some further correspondence. Congress 
accepted his resignation, and his military career ceased accordingly. 

Leaving the army in disgust, he made a short visit to his friends in Connecticut, 
and then hastened to Boston to study the works of Copley and others, his mind still 
bent on the idea of becoming a painter. Determined to visit Europe, he embarked 
for France in May, 1780, and reached London in August following. Falling under 
the suspicion of the English government, Trumbull was arrested for. high treason ; 
but through the interference of West, who was a great favorite of George III., after 
a detention of some months he was liberated on condition of leaving the country 
within thirty days. Acting on this hint he crossed to Ostend, thence proceeded to 
Amsterdam, and embarked for Philadelphia in the frigate South Carolina ; but that 
ship falling short of water and provisions, put into Corunna, where he left it and took 
passage to Bilboa, whence he returned to America in 1782. AVhile a prisoner in 
London, having the assurance from the king that his life was not in danger, he 
pursued his study of the art to which he had consecrated himself, under the direc- 
tion of West. 

After the peace, Trumbull once more visited England, where he labored inde- 
fatigably under the tuition of Mr. W^est for a number of years. It was here that 
he formed the plan of a series of national pictures to be placed in the Capitol, and 
mentioned it to Mr. Adams, at London, and Mr. Jefferson, at Paris, both of whom 
highly approved of it, and promised every encouragement. In 1789 he returned to 
New York, and painted his full-length picture of Washington, copies of which were 
speedily multiplied. After painting many other heads, he embarked once more for 
London, in the capacity of private secretary to Mr. Jay, the envoy extraordinary to 
the court of St. James. 

Mr. Jay having concluded his diplomatic duties in London, Mr. Trumbull went 
to Paris, and embarked in commerce until 1796, when he returned to England, hav- 
ing been appointed fifth commissioner in the execution of the seventh article of Mr. 
Jay's treaty. Having discharged this delicate and arduous duty greatly to his credit, 
he returned home and resumed his pencil in the city of New York, in 1804. 

After a residence abroad of several years, he returned to the United States in 
1815, and commenced those historical pieces which adorn the panels of the rotunda 
at the Capitol, and which reflect so much credit to his pencil and his heart. In 
1817 he was elected president of the " American Academy of Fine Arts," which 
office he held until his death. 




WILLIAM PITT. 



THIS eminent statesman and patriot was the second son of William, first Earl 
of Chatham, and was born at Hayes, Kent county, England, May 28, 1759. 
At six years of age, Rev. Edward Wilson became his tutor in his father's house. 
This tutelage lasted for eight years, during which, notwithstanding his extremely 
delicate state of health, his progress in learning was such, that his father, who had 
designed him for the law, determined to send him to Cambridge ; and he was ac- 
cordingly admitted to Pembroke Hall in the spring of 1773. Here he remained 
three years, noted for his scholarship and gentlemanly bearing, receiving at the end 
of this term the degree of master of arts — being entitled to the master's degree by 
reason of his high birth. 

In the spring of 1780, Mr. Pitt became a resident of Lincoln's Inn, and was con- 
stant in his attendance at Westminster Hall, and attended most of the regular 
terms. He was admitted to the bar, and followed the western circuit the same year. 
In January, 1781, he was returned to Parliament from the borough of Appleby, in 
Westmoreland. 

It was during the momentous crisis of our revolution that Mr. Pitt entered 
Parliament, and he straightway took a commanding position in that body, as an 



376 WILLIAM PITT 

advocate for American freedom, and a denouncer of the war. He took the earliest 
opportunity to state his position, and give his reasons for so doing. In the debate 
in the House of Commons on the famous resolution of Mr. Fox, to wit, " That his 
majesty's ministers ought immediately to take every possible measure for concluding 
peace with our American colonies," Mr, Pitt, after defending the fair fame of his 
noble father, Lord Chatham, from some false charges alleged against him, during the 
debate, said, " In respect to myself, in whatever point of view I consider the Amer- 
ican war, I am only the more confirmed in the opinions I early formed of its origin 
and tendency. It was conceived in injustice ; it icas brought forth and nurtured in 
folly ; its footsteps have been marked loith blood, persecution, ami devastation. It has 
been productive of misery of every kind.''^ 

It is a well-known piece of history, that the motion of Mr. Fox was lost by a 
large majority ; but the speeches of Mr. Pitt and other friends to America were by 
no means thrown away. They worked in that lump until the whole was 
leavened. 

On the opening of Parliament, in November, 1780, on a motion of Mr. Fox, on 
the continuation of the American war, Mr. Pitt, early in the debate, spoke strongly 
and powerfully against the war, and in favor of Mr. Fox's resolution ; " a war," as 
he called it, "which has fruitlessly wasted the blood and treasure of the kingdom 
without even a rational object ; " denouncing in scorching terms the ministers, "who, 
by their fatal system, had led the country, step by step, to the most calamitous and 
disgraceful condition to which a once flourishing and glorious empire could possibly 
be driven." 

In 1781, Mr. Pitt was appointed chancellor of the exchequer, and the year follow- 
ing first lord of the treasury. During all this time his sympathies and exertions 
were all directed towards the accomplishment of peace between England and her 
colonies in America, nor did he cease his efforts until that great end was at length 
brought about. 

We cannot follow Mr. Pitt throughout his distinguished career as a British states- 
man, as it is not germain to our purpose. It is only as the friend to America and 
universal liberty that we place him side by side with those great and good men who 
have rendered their names immortal as the advocates of human freedom. 

At length the victory of freedom over oppression was won, and the independence 
of the United States reluctantly acknowledged by George III.- and his ministers; 
and no man either on the American or British shores more heartily rejoiced in the 
conquest of liberty than Mr. Pitt. After various eminent services rendered to his 
own country, Mr. Pitt died in his forty-seventh year, on the 23d of January, 1806. 



i3^"^5fe>- 




COLONEL TIMOTHY PICKERING. 



TIMOTHY PICKERING was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on the 17th of 
July, 1745. At the age of fourteen he entered Harvard University, in Cam- 
bridge, Massachusetts, and was graduated in 1763. While in college, and after 
leaving it, he entered heart and soul into the discussion of those great political ques- 
tions which, at that time, were agitating his countrymen. Few places were more 
patriotic than Salem, and Mr. Pickering was often called to use his powerful pen in 
aid of the whigs, in forming their resolutions, writing their preambles, attending to 
their correspondence, etc., and the results of his labors are among the rarest and finest 
specimens of political literature which that so fertile age produced. 

Previous to the commencement of hostilities, he held several important civil offices, 
but when the sound of war swept from Lexington and Concord through the land, 
he gave up these duties, and entered the camp. He was elected colonel of the Essex 
militia, and took much pains to instruct his officers and soldiers in the art of their 
calling. When the Boston Port Bill was passed, and it was in contemplation to re- 
move the government to Salem, the citizens of the latter place remonstrated in an 
address voted to General Gage against the proposed act, as a piece of great iiijus- 
lice to Boston. Colonel Pickering wrote the address, which does equal honor to 



378 COLONEL TIMOTHY PICKERING 

his heart and his head. " We must be dead " — thus closes the address — " to every 
idea of justice, lost to all feelings of humanity, could we indulge one thought to 
seize on wealth and raise our fortunes on the ruins of our suffering neighbors." 

To Colonel Pickering it fell to lead the first armed force against English oppres- 
sion. On Sunday, the 2Gth of February, 1775, while the peaceful burghers of Salem 
were quietly dozing at church, or listening to the solemn exhortations of their re- 
spective pastors, news came that a British regiment was landing at Marblehcad, a 
small fishing town about four miles distant, and that they intended to march through 
Salem, in search of some military stores said to be secreted somewhere in the vicin- 
ity. The churches were instantly cleared, and with their ministers at their head the 
congregations proceeded to the drawbridge, raised the draw, and awaited the ap- 
proach of Colonel Leslie and his regiment. 

Colonel Pickering, at the head of what militia he could thus hastily summon, ap- 
peared as the leader on the occasion. On the arrival of Leslie, he told him that the 
stores belonged to the people, and would not be surrendered without a struggle. 
Leslie then attempted to seize on a gondola to enable him to cross the stream, when 
the owner of it, Joseph Sprague, Esq., jumping into the boat, knocked a hole in her 
bottom, and she soon sunk. While doing this he received several slight bayonet 
wounds, thus shedding the first blood of the revolution. The parties were now 
highly excited, and would have speedily been engaged in a bloody fray had not Rev. 
Mr. Barnard, by a wise and timely interference, prevailed on Colonel Leslie to aban- 
don a project which could not fail to be attended with a large effusion of blood. 
Colonel Leslie at length offered to abandon the attempt, if they would suffer him to 
cross the draw, so that it might seem to be voluntary on his part. So the draw was 
let d( n ; the valiant colonel and his regiment crossed between 'he lines of the 
Am* "( n militia, countermarched, retreated to Marblchead in quick time, and set 
sail t same evening. On the 19th of April following occurred the fight at Lex- 
ington. 

In 1776, Colonel Pickering was elected by Congress a member of " The Conti- 
nental Board of War," and the same year he received the highly important appoint- 
ment of quartermaster general, on the resignation of that office by General Greene. 
On the close of the war he removed to Philadelphia, to examine the claims which 
certain individuals of Connecticut had under the government of Pennsylvania. In. 
the discharge of this duty he came near losing his life, and suffered the most shameful 
and cruel treatment at the hands of a band of disguised malcontents. He was a 
member of the convention called in 1790 to revise the constitution of Pennsylvania. 
From 1791 to 1794, he was postmaster general under Washington, and during the 
latter year was made secretary of war. In 1795, he was appointed secretary of state, 
which office he held until the election of John Adams to the presidency. 

Removing to Massachusetts in 1802, he was elected to the United States Senate 
in 1803, and again in 1805. In 1814, he was elected to Congress, and finally retired 
from public life altogether, in 1817. He died at Salem, on the 29th of January, 
1829, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. 




MISS HANNAH ADAMS. 



ri^MlIS renowned and somewhat eccentric female was the daughter of a respect- 



T 



able farmer of Medfield, Massachusetts, where she first saw the light of life in 
17^5. She early manifested a love for books, and while her mates were engaged in 
their various games, she was often found hidden away apart from the world, with a 
book in her hand. Her reading was not of that frivolous kind found on the pages 
of our modern trashy literature. History, biography, poetry, and the classics were 
her constant reading at an early age ; and so retentive was her memory, that in 
childhood even she could repeat whole pages from Pope, Milton, Young, Thomson, 
and other poets. She was in the habit of writing a sort of criticism on all subjects 
that came under her perusal. She also acquired a pretty thorough knowledge of 
Latin and Greek, through the aid of some students who used to board in her father's 
family. 

Just before she became seventeen, her father had the misfortune to lose his prop- 
erty, and she was thus compelled to look about for the means of subsistence. At 
that time, 1773, a great deal of lace was worn, and from the exceeding high price 
which it bore, on account of the heavy duties imposed on its importation, the inge- 
nuity of the Yankees set to work to provide a substitute for foreign lace in the pro- 



380 MISS HANNAH ADAMS 

duction of a domestic article. To this business Miss Adams turned her attention, 
and found it so profitable that it not only supported her, but allowed her good op- 
portunity to indulge her literary taste, both in the purchase of books and the spare 
time it enabled her to give to their perusal. 

When the colonies declared their independence, and assumed to be free and sover- 
eign states, the American ports were once more opened to the products of foreign 
looms, and the handy labor of Yankee fingers could not compete with the poorly-com- 
pensated labor of foreign hands, and Miss Adams's occupation failed her. Finding 
herself out of employment, she cast about her once more for a livelihood, and found 
her knowledge of the languages, which she had acquired by way of pastime, open- 
ing upon her as a mine of wealth. She undertook to prepare young men for college, 
and so successfully did she accomplish her purpose that in a short time "her praise 
was in all the churches," and she had as much as she could attend to for many years 
in this department. 

It was about this time that she thought of turning to profitable account her ex- 
tensive reading. In this she was greatly assisted by her retentive memory. In the 
latter part of her life her memory forsook her almost entirely. She travelled con- 
siderably, and used to carry in her hands a slip of paper, with the destination of her 
journey and the various articles of her luggage written upon it. This catalogue 
she would continually repeat to herself, but in a tone of voice sufficiently loud to be 
heard by those near her. We remember being much amused while riding in the 
stage coach with her a few years before her death, to hear her constantly repeat the 
contents of the slip of paper in her hands : " Great trunk, little trunk, bandbox, and 
bundle, Boston." Her first book was entitled " A View of all Religions." It ex- 
hibited great care and laborious research, and was prepared in a spirit of candor and 
Christian charity. She labored so hard, and confined herself so closely to the com- 
pletion of this work, that her health was greatly impaired. Her second work was 
entitled " A History of New England," and her third and last " Evidences of the 
Christian Religion." These works establislied her reputation as an author, both at 
home and abroad, although she received little by way of pecuniary compensation. 

The latter part of her life was passed in a happy circle of friends in Boston, by 
whom she was greatly beloved for her many amiable virtues and the exceeding sim- 
plicity of her manners, and who gladly contributed to her support. Well do we 
remember her venerable appearance, dressed in the same everlasting plain cap, and 
neat white kerchief folded modestly over her bosom, her face a benediction irradi- 
ating love and good will, and her childlike and simple trust in all around her. She 
died November 16, 1832, aged seventy-six, and was the first one who made her 
final pillow beneath the green turf of " sweet Mount Auburn." 




COUNT D'ESTAING. 



CHARLES HENRY, COUNT D'ESTAING, admiral and lieutenant general 
of the armies of France prior to the revolution, was one of that noble band of 
Frenchmen who came to this country to aid us in our struggle to throw off the yoke 
of England, and without whose brave and generous aid that struggle would have 
been greatly prolonged, and blood and treasure incalculable would have been wasted. 
In the day of our prosperity, when, if not the first, we are one of the first, powers 
on the face of the earth, we ought to cherish the memory of the stranger whose 
sympathies were awakened by the bondage in which we groaned, and who struck a 
bold and manly blow for our deliverance. La Fayette, Steuben, Rochambeau, Du- 
mas, D'Estaing, and all that noble brotherhood ! — let their names be handed down 
to our latest posterity, as the saviors of our country, and let our children and oui 
children's children be taught to " rise up and call them blessed." 

Count D'Estaing was born at Ravel, in Auvergne, France, in 1728, and was de- 
scended from one of the most ancient families of the old French regime. Born both 
to civil and military titles, he entered the navy at an early age, and wore an epaulet 
before he was fifteen. He commenced his career under the famous Count Lally, 
then commander of the French squadrons in the East Indies. Here he early ex- 



382 COUNT D'ESTAING. 

hibited the impetuous spirit which formed so striking a trait of his military character 
in later life — plunging headlong into the greatest dangers, and proud of engaging 
in the most reckless undertakings. As might have been expected, he fell into the 
hands of the English, then at war with the French, and became a prisoner of war. 
After a short time he was sent home on his parole. Violating his honor, he en- 
gaged again in battle before he was exchanged, and was a second time taken pris- 
oner. This time he fared not so well, for he was taken to Portsmouth and confined 
in the hulks, where he remained in close imprisonment until the close of the war. 

In 1778, Count D'Estaing was placed in command of a French fleet, and came 
to America to aid the patriots in attaining their independence, as vice admiral. 
While New York was in possession of the British, a plan was formed to dispossess 
it of the enemy, by a joint attack by the army of Washington on the land, and the 
fleet of D'Estaing on the sea. Through some misunderstanding, the admiral was 
not ready at the appointed time, and Washington and his generals were compelled 
to retire in the greatest rage and mortification ; and D'Estaing, with his squadron, 
was shortly after driven into Newport by the British fleet, where he was closely shut 
up during the remainder of the war. 

On the return of D'Estaing to France, he entered into his country's service once 
more, and was distinguished on several occasions, particularly at the storming and 
capture of the Island of Granada. On his return from this cruise, he found France 
in a state of revolution. He at once espoused the cause of the republicans, and, in 
1789, he was appointed to the general command of the National Guards at Ver- 
sailles. 

On the establishment, in 1791, of the National Assembly, D'Estaing addressed a 
letter to that body, full of the strongest protestations of attachment to the republican 
cause, and engaged with great zeal in the trial of the king, which came on shortly 
after. He also gave his sanction to all the measures of the revolutionists. But for 
all this, we find him falling under the suspicion of the leaders of the revolution. 
Whether it was his aristocratic descent which awakened the jealousy of his col- 
leagues, or whether it was some rash word or act of his, we know not; but he was 
arrested on suspicion of being an enemy to the freedom of his country, and thrown 
into prison. After a while he had his trial, and was condemned to the guillotine, 
on which he suffered in 1793, at the age of sixty-five. 




CHARLES CARROLL, OF CARROLLTON 



CiHARLES CARROLL, of CarroUton, was bom at Annapolis, Maryland, on 
^ the 8th of September, 1737, (O. S.) His father, Charles Carroll, was also born 
in Anaerica, in 1702. He was an active and influential man, a strict Catholic, and 
took a large part in the provincial government of Maryland. At eight years of age 
he sent the subject of this notice to France to be educated, where he remained until 
1757, when he went to London, and entered the Temple as a student of law. To 
this study he brought a strong and refined intellect, cultivated by a highly-finished 
education ; and when, in 1764, at the age of twenty-seven, he returned to Maryland, 
he took a high stand among his countrymen, from whom he had been separated 
nearly a score of years. 

This was at the period when the aggressive measures of Parliament were sub- 
jects of serious and excited discussion. In the course of the next year after the 
return of Carroll, the odious Stamp Act was passed. This roused the patriotic 
resistance of all true lovers of their country. Amongst the foremost of those who 
boldly protested against this piece of tyranny, and pledged themselves to resist the 
execution of the infamous law, was Charles Carroll, of CarroUton. 

In 1771-72, the governor of Maryland issued his proclamation fixing the fees of 



384 CHARLES CARROLL, OF CARROLLTON. 

civil offices, and forbidding, vinder a heavy penalty, any deviation from this pub- 
lished tariff. Excitement and discussion at once became the order of the day, and 
a newspaper contest raged with great bitterness between the advocates of the king's 
authority and those of the people. In this war of words, Mr. Carroll was pitted 
against the colonial secretary. This controversy resulted in the total vanquishment 
of the king's advocate, and the proclamation was hung on the public gallows, and 
then burned. Mr. Carroll received the thanks of the citizens for his spirited and 
manly defence of popular rights. , 

In 1774, the delegates in the Maryland Assembly voted that no more tea should be 
imported into their territory. Nevertheless, the same year a brig load of the obnox- 
ious article arrived in port. Immense was the excitement thereupon, and personal 
violence was threatened to the owners of the vessel and the consignees. In this 
state of things, Mr. Carroll's advice was sought by the owners. " If you would 
allay the people's rage," was his reply, '• burn the vessel, together with its contents." 
Complying, either from necessity or a sentiment of patriotism, with his advice, they 
took the brig into the stream, hoisted all its sails and set its colors, and then set it on 
lire. It burned to the water's edge amidst the hearty acclamations of the patriotic 
multitude. 

In 1776, Mr. Carroll was appointed by the continental Congress a commissioner, 
in conjunction with Dr. Franklin, Samuel Chase, and John Carroll, to induce the 
Canadians to join in resistance to English oppression. Unforeseen events, together 
with the unlimited power of the priests, prevented its success. On his return to 
Philadelphia, he found the subject of a declaration of independence under discussion 
in Congress, and learned that the Maryland delegates had been instructed to vote 
against it. Flying to Annapolis, while the convention — to which he had been 
elected a member — was yet in session, such was the effect of his eloquence and 
the force of his reasoning, that on the 28th of June a new set of instructions were 
sent to Philadelphia, abrogating the old ones, and directing the delegates to vote for 
the declaration. 

On the 4th of July, 1776, the Maryland delegation cast its vote for freedom, and 
on the same day Charles Carroll, of CarroUton, was appointed a delegate to that 
glorious body of freemen whose acts were thunderbolts to tyrants, and brought from 
the angi'y firmament plenteous and refreshing showers to the parched soil of liberty. 
Arriving too late to cast his vote in favor of the Declaration, the president asked 
him if he would sign it. " Most willingly," was his hearty reply, and his name was 
at once affixed to that record of patriotism and freedom. 

]Mr. Carroll continued in Congress until 1778. In 1776 he assisted in the forma- 
tion of the constitution of his native state. He served in the senate of Maryland 
for several years after he left Congress, and from 1788 to 1791 he was a member of 
the United States Senate, after which for ten years he occupied a senatorial chair in 
the legislature of Maryland. For the remainder of his glorious life he lived in re- 
tirement, in the enjoyment of friends, fortune, and health, in the most perfect tran- 
quillity, and on the 14tli of November, 1832, he gently passed away, in the ninety- 
sixth year of his mortal life. 




MAJOR GENERAL ARTHUR ST. CLAIR. 

AFTER his birth, at Edinburgh, in 1734, but little is known of General St. 
Clair, until he came to America with Admiral Boscawen, in 1755. Durino 
the old French war he served as lieutenant under Wolfe, and at its close was put in 
command of Fort Ligonia, in Pennsylvania; but soon afterwards left the army and 
entered into civil life, in which he says " he held six offices in Pennsylvania, all of 
them lucrative." In 1775, he was appointed secretary to the commissioners dele- 
gated by Congress to treat with the Indians at Fort Pitt, in the discharge of which 
duty he gave such satisfaction that Congress appointed him a colonel in the army. 
Repairing to Philadelphia, in January, 1776, he received orders to raise a regiment 
for the Canada service, and such was his activity in that business, that the regi- 
ment was raised and ready to march in six weeks. 

Entering again his old field of duty, Colonel St. Clair took a large part in the 
campaign of 1776, for which services he was rewarded with the commission of 
brigadier general, and in the autumn of the same year was ordered to support Gen- 
eral Washington, then in full retreat through New Jersey. He joined the flying army 
in season to take part in the battles of Trenton and Princeton, in both of which he 
rendered efficient aid, and performed gallant service. 



386 MAJOR GENERAL ARTHUR ST. CLAIR 

Receiving an appointment of major general from Congress in February, 1777, he 
was ordered to Ticonderoga. On the 12th of June he reached that post, and found 
a garrison of about two thousand men in the worst possible plight ; badly armed, 
worse clad, and utterly destitute of warlike munitions, when an efficient and well- 
appointed army of ten thousand men were needed for its defence. Besides which, 
it was invested with an English and German force of seven thousand five hundred 
troops, who were straining every nerve to capture the fortress before it should be 
relieved. Under these circumstances, on the 5th of July a council of officers deter- 
mined to evacuate the place, and it soon fell into the hands of the enemy. For this 
misfortune he was greatly censured, and suspended from his command ; notwith- 
standing which, like a true patriot he never quitted the army, and was by Washing- 
ton's side in the battle of Brandywine, whicji occurred on the 11th of September, 
1778. 

A full investigation of his case was had before a court martial, who acquitted him 
with the highest honor, and Congress unanimously sanctioned its decision. Wash- 
ington's confidence was not withdrawn from him at all, and upon the occasion of 
Sir H. Clinton's movement from New York city to Rhode Island with a large body 
of the enemy, he appointed St. Clair to the command of the light infantry in the 
intended attack upon the city, and which was only defeated by the unexpected re- 
turn of Sir Henry. He joined the army of the south, before Yorktown, a few days 
before the surrender of that post, and shared in the glory of that splendid victory. 
From this place he was ordered into South Carolina to join Greene with six 
regiments and ten pieces of artillery. He effected the junction at Jacksonburg, and 
was with that gallant officer during the short remnant of the war. 

After peace was concluded. General St. Clair resided in Pennsylvania. In 1786, 
he was elected member of Congress from that state, and was called to preside over 
the deliberations of that body. When the north-western territory was created into 
a government, he was chosen its governor. He was appointed in 1788, and con- 
tinued to hold the office until Ohio was admitted into the Union as a state, when he 
declined being a candidate for the gubernatorial office. His unfortunate affair with 
the Indians is well known. He lost his army, and was utterly defeated in his pur- 
poses. In his last battle with his savage foe, he lost, in slain, thirty-eight officers 
and five hundred and ninety-three jiien, and twenty-one officers and two hundred 
and forty-two men wounded. Among the slain were General Butler and Major 
Furgeson. 

The last years of his long and eventful life were spent in useless efforts to obtain 
justice from his ungrateful country, and he died — as many a revolutionary hero has 
died — poor and embarrassed. He expired at Laurel Hill, Philadelphia, August 31, 
1818, aged eighty-four. 




GOVERNOR AYILLIAM R. DAVIE. 



ILLIAM RICHARDSON DAVIE was bom at the village of Egremont, near 
White Haven, England, on the 20th of June, 1756. When seven years of 
age he came to this country with his father, and was confided to the care of Rev. 
William Richardson, a presbyterian minister in the W^axhaw settlement, whose 
name he bore, and who was his maternal uncle. Pleased with the boy, and having 
no children of his own, he adopted him, and made him heir to his estate. After 
using all the means of academic education which the state afforded, he was trans- 
ferred to the college at Princeton, New Jersey. He was sergeant of that gallant band 
of youth which left the flowery paths of study for the tented field. Having served 
through the campaign for which he and his brave compeers had volanteered their 
service, he returned to Princeton, and, finishing his course of instruction in that insti- 
tution, was graduated with the most distinguished honors of his class. 

After his graduation young Davie returned to South Carolina, determining to seek 
employment in the army ; but finding that the commissions had all been disposed of, 
he decided to study law. Accordingly he went to Salisbury, and entered upon his 
clerkship. But the battle field had a charm for him that disturbed the solitude of his 

16 



388 GOVERNOR WILLIAM R. DAVIE. 

closet, and he again sought to share its excitements. He prevailed upon a patriotic 
acquaintance, by the name of Barnet, to raise a company of dragoons, in which corps 
he was appointed a lieutenant. Barnet being rather advanced in life, soon after re- 
signed, and left the command with Davie. Joining his band with Pulawski's legion 
he soon rose to the rank of major, and in the fight at Stono he received so severe a 
wound as to be obliged to leave the field for several months. After passing a few 
weeks in the hospital at Charleston, and finding that his wound vinfitted him for ac- 
tive duty, he returned to Salisbury, finished his clerkship, and received a license to 
practise law. 

In the winter of 1780, having so far recovered his health as to permit his taking the 
field once more, the government of North Carolina empowered major Davie to raise 
one troop of dragoons and two of mounted infantry. He soon raised and equipped 
this force, — although in doing it he wasted the largest part of his estate, — and, pro- 
ceeding to the south, rendered important service to the cause of the patriots, and 
proved himself to be a partisan leader of the very first class. 

It would be impossible in our brief limits to describe all the scenes in which the 
gallant colonel Davie exhibited his daring, ])rudence, and military skill ; suffice it to 
say that he rendered efficient service in harassing the enemy's van, destroying their 
military stores, and in breaking up the strongholds of the tories, whose influence was 
more to be dreaded than that of the British soldiery. In the disastrous defeat of 
Gates, colonel Davie rendered important aid in protecting the rear of the retreating 
army from the vanguard of the enemy, he and his brave troopers often holding in 
check the entire force of the English, by which Gates was enabled to save the 
broken legions of his defeated hosts from utter annihilation. 

When Greene assumed the command of the southern army, he saw and felt the 
necessity of a reform in the commissary department, and he immediately perceived 
the fitness of colonel Davie for this difficult office. After much hesitancy he was 
persuaded to accept it. By his influence with the legislature and several of the most 
wealthy and most influential men of the state of North Carolina, he was enabled to 
meet and supply the needs of the army, and to infuse new hope and vigor into the 
desponding troops. 

At the close of the war, selecting the town of Roanolie for a residence, colonel 
Davie married Sarah, the daughter of general Allen Jones, resigned his commission 
in the army, and commenced once more the practice of his chosen profession. He 
was first employed as counsel in a capital case for the accused, in which he was suc- 
cessful, and established his reputation as a criminal pleader. For fifteen years, it is 
said, not a capital trial was had in any of the courts in which he practised in which 
he was not employed as counsel for the accused. 

Colonel Davie served several years in the legislature of North Carolina ; was a 
member of the convention which framed the constitution and of the state conven- 
tion which accepted it; was made a major general of the militia; was governor one 
year, and then sent as minister to France. On his return he removed to his plan- 
tation on the banks of the Catawba, where he lived respected and beloved until 1820, 
when he died in the sixty-fifth year of his age. 




EEY. JEKEMY EELKNAP, D. D. 



JEREMY BELKNAP, one of the most celebrated writers of his times, as well 
as a most successful minister of the gospel, was born in Boston on the 4Th of 
June, 1744. His early years were passed under the discipline of the celebrated 
" Master Lovel," one of the most successful teachers which even Boston has ever 
produced. He entered Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the early 
age of fourteen, and graduated with distinction in 1762. His talent as a writer and 
his gift at conversation were at this early period quite remarkable ; and many of his 
older and wiser acquaintances predicted for him a course of honorable distinction. 

Being of a decidedly religious cast of mind, on leaving college Mr. Belknap turned 
instinctively to the study of theology. After a due course of study, he was licensed, 
and immediately commenced preaching. After supplying several vacant pulpits, the 
church and society in Dover, New Hampshire, gave him an invitation to take the 
oversight of their spiritual interests. After much consideration and solemn prayer to 
the great Shepherd of the flocks, he accepted the invitation, and was ordained accord- 
ingly on the 18th of February, 1767. Here he passed twenty years of his life de- 
voted to his people, by whom, in turn, he was much beloved and honored. But he 



390 RE V. JEREMY BELKNAP, D. D. 

did not confine himself to the mere duties of his profession. He devoted coiisid- 
erable time to the study of the history of the country, particularly of the state in 
which he resided. lie compiled a very full and elaborate history of that state, which 
he published, and which has ever since been considered as a standard work on that 
subject. It is in three volumes, octavo ; the first volume being published in 17S4, the 
second in 1791, and the third in 1792. 

After having preached to this people for more than twenty years, Mr. Belknap 
resigned his pastorate in 1786, and devoted himself to literature. But he was not 
permitted long to enjoy this repose. The presbyterian church and society in Boston 
had just dismissed its pastor, Rev. Mr. Annan, and, having adopted the congregational 
form of worship, invited him to become their pastor. Accepting the invitation, he was 
installed into his new office on the 4th of April, 1787. 

Mr. Belknap was now in the prime and vigor of manhood, and he entered into his 
literary and parochial labors with renewed purpose and ^est. He took a great inter- 
est in all the movements of the revolution of 1776, writing, preaching, and praying 
with the most urgent zeal in behalf of the cause of freedom ; and no man rejoiced 
with sincerer good will at the ultimate result of that sanguinary struggle than did this 
faithful servant of the Lord. He continued to labor with this people with the utmost 
diligence and cheerfulness for nearly a dozen years. He had a great affection for the 
children of his flock, and, after the fashion of the times, used faithfully to catechize 
them on the fundamentals of the Christian faith ; and on the afternoon preceding 
his death he was engaged in this favorite duty. 

During the latter part of his life his strength and health had gradually failed him : 
when, on the 20th of June, 1798, he was seized with a paralytic affection, which ciided 
his useful life at the age of fifty-four years. 

" Dr. Belknap, in his preaching, did not aim at splendid diction, but presented his 
thoughts in plain and perspicuous language, that all might understand him. While 
he lived in Boston, he avoided controversial subjects, dwelUng chiefly upon the prac- 
tical views of the gospel. His sermons were filled with a rich variety of observations 
on human Ufe and manners. In the various relations of life, his conduct was exem- 
plary. He was a member of many literary and humane societies, whose interests he 
essentially promoted. Wherever he could be of any service, he freely devoted his 
rime and talents. He was one of the founders of the Massachusetts Historical Soci- 
ety, the design of which he was induced to form in consequence of his frequent dis- 
appointment from the loss of valuabl*^ papers in prosecuting his historical researches. 
He had been taught the value of an association whose duty it should be to collect 
and preserve manuscripts and bring together the materials for illustrating the history 
of om' country ; and he had the happiness of seeing such an institution incorporated 
in 1794." 




EDWARD RUTLEDGE. 

THIS eminent man, whose name stands first on the list of the Sonth Carolina 
delegation to the congress of 1776 who affixed their signatures to the 
Declaration of Independence, was born in the city of Charleston, South Carolina, 
in 1749. His father. Dr. John Rutledge, was a native of the Emerald isle, and em- 
igrated to this country about the year 1745, settling in South Carolina. Edward was 
the youngest child, and was quite an infant when his father died, leaving himself and 
six other children in the charge of the widowed mother, not yet twenty-eight years 
of age. Early in life he was placed under the charge of the Rev. David Smith, of 
New Jersey, who undertook the oversight of his education ; but various circumstances 
conspired to prevent any considerable acquisition in the classics, or even in general 
literature. 

Mr. Rutledge entered upon the study of law in the office of his brother, John Rut- 
ledge, who was abeady a shining ornament of the South Carolina bar ; and in 1769, 
at the age of twenty years, he went to England to complete his legal studies, and 
remained at the Temple two or three years. On his return to the United States, in 
1773, he opened an office in Charleston and commenced the practice of his profession. 



392 EDWARD RUTLEDGE. 

He soon became distinguished for those traits of character and those peculiar gifts 
for which he became so preeminently conspicuous in subsequent life. 

In 1774, he had attained to such a degree of popularity that he was selected with 
great unanimity as a suitable delegate to represent the interests of his district in the 
continental congress about to assemble at Philadelphia. Such was the satisfaction 
of his constituency for the patriotic com-se he had pursued in this congress, that he 
was thanked by a formal vote in the provincial congress of South Carolina, and re- 
turned to the next session of the continental congress, as also to that of 1776. He 
bore a prominent part in all the discussions which preceded the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and his name appears at the head of the South Carolina delegation ap- 
pended to that important document. 

Mr. Rutledge was subsequently appointed, in conjunction with Dr. Franklin and 
John Adams, a committee to meet lord Howe, at his own request, to enter into ne- 
gotiations respecting the state of affairs. The committee was treated with mitch 
consideration ; and on the breaking up of the convention, they were sent back in his 
excellency's own barge. It was on this passage that the following characteristic in- 
cident is said to have occurred: "A little before reaching the shore, Dr. Franklin, 
putting his hand in his pocket, began chinking some gold and silver coin. This, 
vv'hen aboitt leaving the boat, he olTered to the sailors who had rowed it. The British 
officer, however, who commanded the boat, prohibited the sailors accepting it. After 
the departure of the boat, one of the commissioners inquired Avhy he had offered 
nioney to the sailors. ' Why,' said the doctor, in reply, ' the British think we have 
no hard money in the colonies, and I thought I would show them to the contrary, I 
risked nothing,' added he ; ' for I knew that the sailors would not be permitted to ac- 
cept it.' " 

In 1779, Mr. Rutledge was once more returned to congress, but was seized with 
illness on his way to the seat of government and compelled to return home, and did 
not take his seat during that session. On the sacking of Charleston by the British 
soldiery, in 1780, he was taken prisoner and sent to St. Augustine, where he was 
kept in confinement nearly a year, when he was exchanged, and went +o Philadel- 
phia, where he resided until the evacuation of his native city by the English, when 
he returned and took up his residence in his own home once more. 

Mr. Rutledge now devoted himself to the practice of his profession, and for seven- 
teen years he continued to maintain the popularity he had acquired.' During this 
time he steadily resisted all proffers of office except serving a few terms in the state 
legislature. In 1798, however, he consented to become a candidate for governor, and 
was triumphantly elected to that office. For the last few years preceding his health 
had suffered considerably from repeated attacks of the gout ; and in consequence of 
an exposure to a cold rain storm, in which he was compelled to return home, he 
was seized with a severe return of his old disease, which terminated his valuable 
and brilliant career on the 2'3d of January, 1800, in the fifty-second year of his age. 




I 



GENERAL JOHN SULLIVAN, LL. D. 

JOHN SULLIVAN, a major goneral in the continental army, and president for 
several years of the state of New Hampshire, was born at Berwick, Maine, on 
the 17th of February, 1741. His father, a scholar of some distinction, came to 
America about the year 1723. He lived to see his two sons — James, the governor 
of Massachusetts, and the subject of this memoir — become eminent among their 
fellow-countrymen, and died at the patriarchal age of one hundred and five. The 
earlier years of general Sullivan were passed under the paternal roof tree, his father 
overseeing the education of both his sons. The main portion of their minority, how- 
ever, was passed in laborious work on their father's farm. 

On arriving at his majority, John passed a regular apprenticeship in the study of 
law, and opened an office for its practice in the village of Durham, New Hampshire. 
When the first continental congress assembled, he was a member of that body ; but 
the necessities of the country were such that he was constrained to resign his seat 
that he might take a more active part in the struggle which had already commenced 
for independence. Soon after leaving congress, in company with John Langdon, 
speaker of the provincial congress of New Hampshire, he raised a small body of men, 



394 GENERAL JOHN SULLIVAN, LL.D 

and proceeding to Portsmouth, in that state, he surprised and seized fort William 
and Mary, and carried ofi' all the cannon — a most valuable acquisition to the mil- 
itary stores of the patriots. 

On the organization of the continental army, in 1775, IVIr. Sullivan was appointed 
one of its eight brigadier generals, and, in the year following, a major general. On 
the failure of the northern army, under Arnold, in 1776, he was appointed to super- 
sede that officer. But meeting with no better success than his predecessor, he was 
obliged to retreat upon the main army, then encamped on Long Island, and under 
command of general Greene. This brave officer falling sick, the command devolved 
on Sullivan. Here again he experienced disaster, and, in a severe battle fought on 
the 27th of August, he was taken prisoner, in company with lord Stirling. He was 
soon exchanged, however, and once more engaged in fighting the battles of freedom. 

When general Charles Lee was surprised and carried off by a British colonel, 
with a mere handful of troopers, as he was leisurely proceeding to the scene of action 
in New Jersey, general Sullivan succeeded to the command of his division, and ren- 
dered good service in the battles of Brandywine and Germantown. The winter fol- 
lowing, he was transferred to the command of the army in Rhode Island, where, after 
considerable manoeuvring, he, in conjunction with D'Estaing, who was at the time 
in command of the French fleet, laid siege to Newport, then in possession of the 
English. In utter breach of faith, — of which once before he had been guilty, in the 
case of the contemplated attack on New York city, — instead of coming to the aid of 
Sullivan, D'Estaing sailed for Boston, and left him to the mortifying necessity of raising 
the siege, just as he had got it well under way, and retreating before the exulting 
enemy. On the 29th of August, however, he paused in his retreat and gave the 
enemy battle, who was repulsed with severe loss, giving him time to cover and secure 
his retreat to the continent, which he did without the loss of a single article, and 
without awakening the suspicion of the British general. 

In the early summer of 1779, he assumed the command of an expedition against 
the six nations of Indians, in the state of New York. In the latter part of the sum- 
mer, he was joined by general Clinton. Marching upon the Indians, they were 
found encamped in immense numbers at Newtown, between the Tioga river and the 
south end of Seneca lake, and under command of the celebrated Brandt and the 
bloodthirsty Butlers and other tory leaders. Before the first of September, they had 
attacked them in their works and gained a complete victory. Routing the whole 
host, and destroying their works of defence, they were either slain, taken prisoners, 
or scattered and driven away like chaff before the wind. Their whole country was 
laid waste, villages burned, and crops destroyed. This severity was deemed to be 
necessary to secure peace from the further incursions of the savage foe. 

Although this expedition was so successfully carried through, general Sulhvan was 
complained of for his " exorbitant demands " on congi*ess for supplies, and the fault 
he found with the board of war for their inefficient efforts to sustain the officers of 
the army. Disgusted with their treatment, he threw up his commission and retired 
to his farm m Durham, New Hampshire. He was soon after elected to congress, 
where he served until 1786, when he was chosen president of New Hampshire. He 
held this office until 1789, when he was appointed district judge, whose duties he 
continued to discharge until his death, which took place January 23, 1795, at the age 
of fifty-four years 




LORD NORTH. 



I.IREDERIC, EARL OF GUILFORD; LORD NORTH; lord warden and 
admiral of the Cinque Ports ; governor of Dover Castle ; lord lieutenant and 
rnslos rutulorem of Somersetshire; chancellor of the university of Oxford; recorder 
of Gloucester and Taunton ; elder brother of the Trinity House ; president of the 
Foundling Hospital, and of the Asylum ; governor of the Turkey House and Char- 
ter House, etc., etc., was born on the 13th of April, 1732. He passed through the 
usual courses of study at Eton and Oxford, and graduated with literary honors. 
He was married, in 1756, to Miss Speke, heiress of the ancient family of Dillington, 
in Somersetshire. 

Lord North was a devoted and honest loyalist, and exerted, in his station, all his 
influence to maintain English supremacy in America. He was a man of great 
mental activity, and suddenly rose to power. He succeeded the celebrated states- 
man and diplomatist, Charles Townsend, as manager of the House of Lords, and 
chancellor of the exchequer, and in 1770 he sat in the premier's chair, in the pres- 
ence of the throne — the throne itself only the echo of his will. 

As soon as he felt himself well seated on this giddy eminence, he entered vigor- 
ously into the defence of the throne. There was not a disloyal thought in his breast 

17 



396 LORD NORTH. 

and every measure he proposed, adopted, or carried into execution, had England's 
glory and England's greatness for its aim and purpose. He did not stop to ask 
who had rights — the claims of humanity were nothing, if they crossed the path of 
England's progress. And so, when the American people cried for redress, and called 
on the crown for justice — when they sought to exercise the Ileaven-directcd right of 
men, and demanded a mitigation of the oppressive laws which made them slaves, 
North and those of his party cried out, " Rebellion, rank and vn^raleful rebellion I " 
and sought to crush it by every energy of the nation. Millions of wealth were ex- 
pended ; blood flowed like water from the best veins in the realm ; human life was 
accounted as nothing ; and Lord North declared that he would not stop in his bloody 
and tyrannical course until the haughty rebels were humbled, or until the treasury 
was utterly drained, and there were no more soldiers to fight. 

In common with most of his supporters in Parliament and the kingdom, Lord 
North totally misunderstood the movement in America. The idea of throwing off 
the British yoke was one of after growth — was a dernier resort, to be adopted when 
all other means had failed. There would have been no rebellion, had England pro- 
tected and fostered her colonies. That a separation would have come in due time, 
none can doubt, but it would have been amicably adjusted to the mutual advantage 
of the mother and her children. And that the independence of the United States 
was precipitated by the severe and impolitic measures of Lord North and his com- 
peers, is just as plain. 

But we admire and respect the loyalty and honest fidelity of North, albeit he was 
the fierce foe to American freedom. His birth, education, and the force of circum- 
stances made him what he was, and gave him a complacent conscience while he was 
asing every effort to tighten the bands of his transatlantic brethren. But he had to 
' ield, at length, to the growth of the popular party, and retire from the station where 
.le had produced so much misery, and carried with him the scorn of every lover of 
human freedom. 

It is a curious coincidence that both the master and the servant, George HI. and 
Lord North, should have been stricken with blindness during the last years of their 
lives. North died Augvist 5, 1792, n«^crlv a onarter of a century before his royal 
master. 




GENERAL JOHN STAllK, 

rpHE "Hero of Bennington," as he is generally called, and son of Archibald 
JL Stark, a Scotchman, who came to this country and settled on the banks of the 
Merrimac River, about 1725, was born at Londonderry, now the city of Manchester, 
New Hampshire, on the 28th of August, 1728. Of his early childhood little was 
known. At a very early age, he, together with his three brothers, became quite fa- 
mous as trappers and hunters. On one occasion John had followed his vocation far 
into the wilderness, and was taken prisoner by a party of St. Francois Indians. 
This was in 1752. After suffering incredible hardships in his captivity, he was ran- 
somed at a great price, and returned again to his home on the Merrimac. 

In 1756, Stark was chosen captain of a company of rangers, under the famous 
Major Robert Rogers. " This was the school," says his biographer, " in which not 
only John Stark learned the practice of war, but many others of the same stamp, 
on the borders of New Hampshire, were thus prepared to dare and overcome the 
power of England." When the long-pent-up fires of the revolution burst forth in 
resistance, and the first blood was shed at Concord and Lexington, he hastened with 
his trainband to Cambridge, where the colonists were collecting under Washington 
to defend their homes from the spoliation of British soldiery. He was at once com- 



308 GENERAL JOHN STARK. 

missioned colonel, and the same day eight hundred men, most of whom had followed 
iiim from New Hampshire, enlisted to serve under him. Making his headquarters in 
Medford, he prepared his men for the conflict which all saw was approaching. On 
the morning of the 17th'of June, 1775, he was on Bunker Hill, and while there the 
English opened their cannonading. Hastening to Medford, he marched his men to 
the scene of action over the Neck, constantly exposed to a raking fire from the ships 
of the enemy at anchor in the Charles River. Pursuing his way steadily, one of his 
more impetuous captains urged a greater speed. " Captain Dearborn," was liis re- 
ply, " one fresh man in battle is worth a dozen tired ones." He arrived, however, 
in season to render essential aid in the fight, and occupied the bloodiest post on that 
memorable occasion. 

" After the evacuation of Boston by the British, in March, 1776, Stark was or- 
dered to New York. Here he remained till the follov^ing May. In the army of the 
north, he was placed at the head of a brigade by General Gates, and soon after 
joined General Washington in Pennsylvania, with whom he fought the battle of 
Trenton, having the direction of the 'right wing of the advanced guard,' under 
the immediate command of General Sullivan. He next shared in the honors of the 
battle of Princeton." Here he manifested that heroism, courage, and prudence which 
were so conspicuous at Bennington. Being overlooked in the distribution of rewards 
by Congress, he threw up his commission in disgust, and retired from the army. 

His native state shared in his disgust, and did what it could to heal his wounded 
honor and pride. The legislature voted the thanks of the state, and on the approach 
of Burgoyne he was sent to oppose his progress with the command of a brigade. 
Making his headquarters at No. Four, (since Charlestown,) New Hampshire, he 
soon found himself at the head of a considerable army, and forthwith commenced 
operations, by marching to Bennington, Vermont, a place he selected as the best 
point for harassing and annoying the English army. 

After some sharp skirmishing, on the 16th of August, 1777, he gained that splen- 
tlid victory at Bennington, Vermont, over a strong detachment of the enemy under 
Colonel Baum, which was the first of a series of brilliant achievements, ending in the 
surrender of Burgoyne, at Saratoga, two months after this event. As they were 
about to commence the attack. General Stark called his "Green Mountain Boys'" 
into hollow square, and thus addressed them : " Boys ! there's the enemy. They 
must be beat, or Molly Stark must sleep a widow this night ! Forward, boys ! march I " 

For these important services Congress voted General Stark their grateful thanks, 
and commissioned him brigadier general in the continental army, and joining Gen- 
eral Gates, he rendered efficient aid in the destruction of that splendid army which 
laid down its arms to the American commander at Saratoga. 

In 1779, he served in Rhode Island. In 1780, he was with Washington at Mor- 
ristown, and fought in the battle of Springfield. He was also a member of the 
court martial that sentenced Andre to be hanged. He continued in the service till 
1783, when he carried the news of peace to his native colony, now a state. Hence- 
forth he declined public employment. He lived to a great age, dying May 8, 1822, 
aged ninety-three years. A granite shaft marks the place of his interment, on the 
east bank of the Merriinac, bearing the simple inscription, " Major Generai 
Stark." 




JOHN DICKINSON. 



FORTUNE smiled on the birth of this elegant scholar and pure patriot, so that 
the rare qualities of his vigorous mind were early fostered and developed, until 
he became a worthy competitor with Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, and Ames ; and 
perhaps none of tliese great men wielded "the pen of a ready writer" with more 
force or elegance than he. 

John Dickinson was born in Maryland on the 2d day of November, (O. S.,) 1732. 
His early education was acquired under the care of Chancellor Kilen, then a young 
teacher of celebrity. He studied law for a while in the office of John Moland, of 
Philadelphia, and finished his legal education by a course of three years' study in 
the Temple, at London. He then returned to America, and opened an office at 
Philadelphia, where he soon rose to eminence in his profession. In 1764, he was 
elected to the Assembly of Philadelphia. The question of British aggression was 
already come to be discussed in the variou^^ state legislatures, and Mr. Dickinson 
took a prominent part in the debates before that body. 

In September of 1765, Mr. Dickinson was appointed a delegate to the general 
Congress which, in the following month, assembled in New York. No sooner had 
he entered that body than the influence of his pen was felt. He drafted the resolu- 



400 JOHN DICKINSON. 

tions passed by that body, remonstrating against the oppressive measures of Eng- 
land. It was while he was a member of this body that he commenced that series 
of brilliant papers which emanated from his pen during all our struggle with Great 
Britain, the most prominent and efficient of which were the celebrated " Farmer's 
Letters." In these letters, addressed to the " Inhabitants of the British Colonies," 
in a vigorous and clear manner he reviewed the course of the English cabinet, and 
conclusively and triumphantly showed that it was based in injustice, and execut- 
ed in the spirit of a foul oppression. Probably no other compositions did so much 
in enlightening his countrymen, and rousing their spirit of resistance. For this 
effort he received the most flattering testimonials from all parts of the country. 
They were republished in London, in 1768, and in Virginia and Paris the following 
year. 

In 1774, Mr. Dickinson became a member of Congress from Pennsylvania, and 
immediately became engaged in those dignified, elaborate, logical, and elegant ad- 
dresses which do so much credit to that body, and which were the products of his 
pen. Among these were " An Appeal to the Inhabitants of Quebec," and a petition 
to the King of Great Britain — papers which won the highest eulogium from eminent 
men on both sides of the Atlantic. 

Ardent as was the patriotism of Mr. Dickinson, and greatly as he desired the 
prosperity of his country, he, with many other true patriots, doubted the expediency 
of declaring our independence, and his name is not, accordingly, attached to that 
glorious instrument. He thought that England should be made to grant our just 
rights, and consent to our independence. But no sooner was the declaration made 
to the world than he gave himself, with his usual vigor, to its maintenance and 
defence. 

In 1779, he was elected to Congress, where his services were again called into 
requisition, and discharged in his usual vigorous and felicitous manner. In 1780, he 
was elected to the Assembly of Delaware, and in the same year was chosen, by both 
branches of the legislature, president of that state. In 1782, he was elected presi- 
dent of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, which office he held until 
1785. He was a member of that august body which met in convention to draft the 
constitution, where his rich experience and rare political knowledge enabled him 
greatly to aid in the deliberations and result of the convention. In 1792, he was a 
member of the convention which formed the constitution of Maryland. 

In 1770, Mr. Dickinson married Miss Mary, daughter of Isaac Norris, Esq., of 
Fair Hill, Pennsylvania, and took up his residence in Wilmington, Delaware, where 
he spent the remainder of his life, enjoying the blessings of an ample fortune, in the 
midst of an elegant and polished society, loved by all around him, and truly vener- 
ated by the rising generation for the prominent part he had taken in the achievement 
of the blessings of liberty bequeathed to them by those who declared and won our 
independence. Full of years and full of honors, he departed for his higher reward 
on the 14th of February, 1808, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. 




SIR GUY CARLETON. 



GUY CARLETON, Lord Dorchester, was born in England, in 1725. His early 
opportunities for the cultivation of his intellect were good, and he improved 
them. At an early age he entered the army, serving in various grades, until, in 
1766, he came to America with the commission of brigadier general, and rendered 
the English cause some service in the French and Indian war. In 1772, he was ad- 
vanced to the office of major general, and in 1774, a commission received the sanc- 
tion of the seals constituting him captain general and governor of Quebec. 

In 1775 occurred the capture of Montreal, on the retreat from which Sir Guy came 
near being taken prisoner, and escaped only by using muffled oars. Arriving in 
safety at Quebec, he found himself in the midst of new and unexpected dangers. 
The brave and hardy army which had made its way from New England through the 
Canadian wilderness, under the lead of Arnold, suddenly made its appearance before 
the city, and, in conjunction with the force under Montgomery, threatened it with 
overthrow. General Carleton immediately took measures for a vigorous defence. 
He guarded all the weak points of attack, and compelled every person who would 
not bear arms in defence of the city to evacuate it, under penalty of close imprison- 
ment. 



-1:02 SIR GUY CARLETON. 

Having taken these and other wise precautions, he awaited the result, trusting to 
the strength of his position. When Montgomery at length approached, he found 
the enemy impregnable, and his summons of surrender was returned with every mark 
of contempt by the intrepid governor, whose resolution and skill preserved Quebec 
from becoming the spoil of the Americans. After the vmhappy defeat of Mont- 
gomery, in December, disaster seemed to rest on all the plans of the American 
generals ; and the army, mourning the loss of its gallant leader, lost heart, and after 
a series of unsuccessful attempts upon the city, withdrew from beneath its walls, 
at length retiring from Canada altogether, thus bringing to a close one of the most 
unfortunate campaigns of the war. 

The field being now comparatively clear, and Quebec no longer threatened, Sir 
Guy resolved to act on the offensive. Accordingly he led his forces against Crown 
Point, which he recaptured after a slight struggle. He had aimed also at the re- 
duction of Ticonderoga, but the winter became^ so exceedingly severe that he thought 
best to abandon the attempt for the present, and retired to St. John, where he took 
up his quarters for the rest of the winter. 

In 1777, Sir Guy was recalled, and General Burgoyne installed in his place. This 
was one of those measures of the British ministry which showed that "the gods 
had intended to destroy" it, and there can be but little question that the result of 
the descent of the English army upon New York had been very different under the 
brave, prompt, and sagacious Carleton. Not that Burgoyne lacked courage, but he 
wanted that quick apprehension of the true condition of things about him which 
would enable him to take the best advantage of them. 

Again, in 1782, the English government having learned their mistake, General 
Carjerop v^as reinstated in favor, and appointed, as successor to Sir H. Clinton 
commander-in-chief of his majesty's forces in North America. But the field for 
glory was forever closed, and nothing remained for him but inglorious repose and 
more inglorious retreat. He arrived in this country in IMay, 1783, and made his 
head quarters at New York. Here, hedged in by the American army, now confident 
of success and flushed with its recent victories, he found it impossible long to hold 
his position, and signed the articles of capitulation, evacuating the city on the 25th 
of November. He immediately embarked his troops in the British ships then lying 
in the harbor, and took leave of the American shores forever. He died in England, 
in 1808, being eighty-three years of age. 




PHILLIS AVHEATLEY. 



THIS remarkable woman was of pure negro extract, and was born in the interu)r 
of Africa in the year 1755. At the age of six years she was stolen from her 
rude home by a band of kidnappers and sold to a slave merchant, who brought her, 
together with many others of her tribe obtained in the same lawless manner, to the 
American slave market. At that time Mason and Dixon's line was no landmark to 
slavery ; but in every colony, from the Carolinas to the St, John's, the negroes were 
held in bondage. It was her good fortune to find a purchaser in a woman of a noble 
nature, who treated her with all the kindness her situation required. 

This lady was the wife of JNIr. John Wheatley, a merchant of influence in Boston, 
in Massachusetts Bay, whose name she bore ever afterward until her unfortunate mar- 
riage. "She was a gentle, docile child, of a quick apprehension and great aptitude in 
learning to do the various little acts required of her. As she gi-ew up she manifested 
a great love for books, which her mistress perceiving, she determined to foster her 
taste for learning, and superintended her earlier education. But her quickness at 
learning so pleased and surprised her kindhearted patroness and her husband that 
they determined to give her the best chances for acquiring an education which the 

18 



40i PHIL LIS WHEATLEY 

country afforded, and accordingly placed her at the best schools in that city. Here her 
progi-ess was such as abundantly to repay her generous mistress and to surprise all 
who had occasion to come into contact with her. She acquked a thorough knowl- 
edge of the English and Latin tongues, and a general acquaintance with mathemat- 
ics and belles lettres. She had considerable tact at writing verses, although her poet- 
ry was never of a very high character ; but her prose compositions did gi-eat credit to 
her tastes and talents, showing that the susceptibility of a high development may be 
found in a purely African brain. 

At the age of eighteen she lost her health, and it was decided that she should seek 
improvement in a change of scene and climate. Accordingly, in 1772, she accom- 
panied a son of her master to England. At London and other places she received 
very flattering attentions from the most distinguished families in the realm. While 
in London a volume of her poems was published, embellished with a portrait of its 
author. It was dedicated to the Countess of Huntington, and the preface contained 
a certificate from the governor of Massachusetts colony and other distinguished gen- 
tlemen, of their belief that she was the sole author of the contents of the book. 
While in London her deportment is represented to have been gentle and modest, 
while her temper was mild and her manners refined. Her religious feelings were 
strong, as her writings constantly indicate. 

On her return to this country, Miss Wheatley entered into correspondence with sev- 
eral of the most respectable of her English friends, as well as with som.e of the re- 
nowned men of the American colonies. Li a letter from Washington, bearing date 
February 28, 1776, while he held his head quarters at Cambridge, he writes to her as 
follows : — 

" I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me in the elegant lines you 
enclosed; and however undeserving I may be of such encomium and panegyric, the 
style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your poetical talents. If you should 
ever come to Cambridge, or near head quarters, I shall be l^ppy to see a person so 
favored by the Muses, and to whom Nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her 
dispensations. 

" I am, with great respect, your obedient, humble servant, 

" George Washington." 

After her return from England, Miss Wheatley contracted an unfortunate mamage 
with a man of her own color, and by whom the remainder of her life was made un- 
happy. She died in Boston, in 1784, at the age of thirty-one years, in great desti- 
tution. She left three children. 




GENERAL PETER MUHLENBERG. 



JOHN PETER GABRIEL MUHLENBERG was the son of the Rev. Dr 
jMuhlejiberg, the founder of the Lutheran church in America, and was born in 
the village of Trappe, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, October 1, 1746. His 
mother was the daughter of a celebrated officer and Indian agent in Pennsylvania, 
by the name of Weiser. In his earliest infancy his pious father consecrated him to 
the church, and all his early education was intended to fit him for the services of the 
ministerial office. After a thorough rudimentary preparation, he was sent to Eng- 
land to complete the education his father had so thoroughly commenced. After 
several years spent in Europe, he returned to this country, and commenced preaching 
in New Jersey in 1768. Two years afterwards he married Miss Meyer, with whom 
he lived in great conjugal happiness for many years. 

In 1772, Mr. Muhlenberg received a call from a parish in Virginia, and in order to 
assume the duties of a pastorate, he went over to London to receive ordination at the 
hands of the bishops. On his return he at once entered upon the care of the flock 
which had called him to their oversight, and "the parson of Woodstock" was soon 
and extensively known as a leader in the opposition to British oppression and taxa- 
tion. In 1774, he was chosen chairman of the committee of safety raised in the 



^,j(3 GENERAL PETER MUHLENBERG. 

comity in winch he resided. Ho was also chosen to a seat in tlie Assembly of I3nr- 
gesses, where his zeal and eloquence soon )3laced him in the foremost rank of Vir- 
ginia patriots. 

But the sacerdotal robes laid his jDatriotic spirit under a restraint ill suited to his 
military and militant spirit, and he determined to lay aside the surplice for the uni- 
form of a soldier. On a certain Sunday he preached his farewell sermon to his 
liock, in which he stated his determination to enter the lists as a champion and sol- 
dier of freedom. '' According to holy writ," he remarked, " there is a time for all 
things; a time to preach, and a time to pray; but those times had passed away;" 
and then, in a voice which carried consternation into the hearts of the more timid 
among his congregation, he exclaimed, " There is a time to fight, also, and that time 
/i as now come.'''' Then, suddenly throwing off his surplice, he stood before his aston- 
ished people in the full uniform of a Virginia colonel. He had previously received 
his commission, and exhibiting the instrument of his authority, he called on all true 
patriots to join the holy crusade for human rights and human freedom. He ordered 
the drums to beat for recruits at the door of the church, and nearly the whole male 
portion of his congregation over sixteen years of age enlisted as volunteers in the 
service of their country. In the course of that eventful day, the number of his re- 
cruits was swollen to nearly three hundred effective men. As soon as his hastily- 
collected soldiers could be provided with the munitions of war, he marched to 
Charleston, South Carolina, and aided in the defence of that place, in 1776. 

Serving v/ith great fidelity in the southern campaign of that year, Colonel ]Mnh- 
lenberg was promoted, by Congress, to the rank of general of brigade, in February, 
1777, and ordered to assume the command of all the troops in the Virginia line. In 
May he joined the army at Middlebrook, and fought at the side of Vv'ashington in 
the battles of Brandywine and Germantown. He likewise bore a part in the suffer- 
ings of the army at Valley Forge, in the winter of 1779. At the battle of Mon- 
mouth and the capture of Stony Point he took a conspicuous part, and won the 
praise of his chief for his courageous and soldierly conduct throughout the whole of 
that campaign. 

The following year General Muhlenberg was ordered once more to assume the 
command of the Virginia line. From this time until the taking of Cornwallis and 
the surrender of Yorktown, he was in constant active service. He shared in that 
glorious victory which put an end to the British rule in America, and at the close of 
the war he retired into Pennsylvania, with the commission of major general, as a 
mark of the high regard in which his services were held by the country. 

Serving in various civil offices in the state. General Muhlenberg was elected a 
member of the third federal Congress. In 1801, he was returned a member of the 
Senate of the United States, The same year he was appointed supervisor of the 
internal revetaie of the state, and, in 1802, he was made collector of the port of 
Philadelphia. He held this office until his death, which occurred on his sixty-first 
birthday, October 1, 1807. 




MAJOR GENERAL MORGAN LEWIS. 



J^ 



ORGAN LEWIS, a major general in the armies of the United States, and a 
signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born in the city of New 
York, October 16, 1754. His preparatory studies were pursued at the academy at 
Elizabethtown, and he was graduated at Princeton, in 1773. He immediately en- 
tered the law office of the late Chief Justice Jay, where he remained two years. 
During this time he was a member of a volunteer corps, comprised of young men 
desirous of preparing themselves for the emergencies of the rupture then daily ex- 
pected between the United States and the mother country. This corps was com- 
manded by a young American, who had served in the armies of the great Frederic 
of Prussia, and so effectual was his discipline that more than fifty of his little band 
served gallantly as officers in the coming war. 

In 1775, young Lewis enlisted as a volunteer in a company of rifles, under com- 
mand of Captain Ross, and joined the army of Washington at Cambridge. He 
returned to New York, however, the same year, to take command, as first major, in 
the New York regiment, raised by the Provincial Congress, under John Jay as col- 
onel. Colonel Jay, however, never assumed the command — a duty which, in con- 
sequence, devolved on Major Lewis. 



408 MAJOR GENERAL MORGAN LEWIS 

In June, 1776, Gates was appointed to the command of the Canadian army. In 
all his inefficient operations Major Lev/is was with liim, and spent the winter in 
Ticonderoga. The ensuing campaign opened early in 1777, by the evacuation of 
Ticonderoga. Meanwhile Gates had been recalled ; but in August was reinstated 
in command. Colonel Lewis still being attached to his staff. On the 19th of Sep- 
tember and the 7th of October, days ever memorable in the annals of our revolution, 
Colonel Lewis rendered most essential service in his Argus-eyed supervision of the 
battles, and the prompt transmission of the orders of the commander-in-chief. After 
the convention of Saratoga, Colonel Lewis rendered valuable service to the cause, 
although he was not engaged in any other important affair during the war. 

When peace was established. Colonel Lewis returned to the duties of his profes- 
sion in his native city. He was elected the same year to represent the city in the 
assembly of the state, and having removed to Dutchess county the following year, 
was elected to the same place. In 1791, he was elected attorney general to the 
state. In 1792, he was chosen one of the judges of the Supreme Court, and in 
1801, was raised to the chief justiceship of the same bench. In 1804, he was elected 
governor of New York ; and in 1810, he was sent to the senate from the middle dis- 
trict of that state. 

On the declaration of w^ar against England by Congress, in 1812, Colonel Lewis 
once more took up arms in defence of his country, and was appointed quartermaster 
general of the armies of the United States, with a brigadier's rank. The following 
year he was raised to the rank of major general, and entered into active service. He 
served with great credit on the Canadian frontier until 1814, when he was ordered 
to the command of the defences of the city of New York. The attention of the 
enemy being turned towards the south, no further active services were rendered during 
the war by this gallant soldier. The remainder of his life was passed as a civilian, 
in the duties of which station he distinguished himself as a discriminating statesman 
and excellent citizen. 

General Lewis was the soul of honor, and his house the open court of hospitality. 
" Open as day to melting charity " was his hand, his purse, and his ample board. 
When controlling the finances of the army, his personal credit was often required, 
and never withheld. He rendered essential aid to many of his suffering countrymen, 
whose hard fortune it was to fall upon the tender mercies of the enemy. As a soldier 
he was a strict disciplinarian, and bravest among the brave. 

At the time of his death he was president of the New York State Society cf t>e 
Cincinnati. 




JOHN WILKES. 



JOHN WILKES, one of the most powerful of that band of English republicans 
whose pens were engaged in behalf of the American revolution, was born in 
England, in 1727. We have been able to glean but little of his early life, and that 
little scarcely worth recording. When he reached maturity he began to exert con- 
siderable influence upon the political destinies of Great Britain. His sympathies 
were early enlisted in favor of the American colonies ; and he suffered no opportunity 
to pass in which he could hurl a lampoon at the king and his ministry. He soon 
became dreaded by the king's faction, and repeatedly brought trouble upon himself 
by the freedom which he allowed to his pen. He set up also as a moralist, and 
assailed the follies of his age with his keen satire. 

Mr. Wilkes managed to wi-ite himself into parliament, to a seat in which he was 
elected in 1757. He at once threw the whole force of his influence into the oppo- 
sition, and labored constantly and effectually in the cause of the English colonies in 
North America, who were struggling to resist the oppressive measures of the British 
crown. He became a contributor to various magazines and political journals. In 
an article in the " North Britain," in 1763, he dealt very severely with the govern- 



410 JOHN WILKES. 

meiTt. For this he was aiTO^ted and sent to the Tower, from which, however, he was 
not Jong after released, and returned to his seat in the house of commons. But 
he did not learn wasdom, and soon after wrote a most licentious essay on the fe- 
male sex, which was so obnoxious as to excite the indignation of all honest men, and 
he was expelled from the house of commons. He was prosecuted, tried, and ac- 
([uitted, and afterwards sued the under secretary and recovered five thousand dollars. 

Mr. Wilkes now went to Paris, where he resided some time, and, in 1768, returned 
to England, sent a letter of submission to the king, and was restored again to 
favor. Not long after his return he was elected once more to a seat in parliament 
which was successfully contested. He was then elected one of the body of aldermen 
for the city of London. Prosecuting the secretary of state for illegally seizing his 
papers, he obtained a verdict of twenty thousand dollars. He was next elected 
sheriff of London, and subsequently, in 1774, lord mayor of that city. 

Mr. Wilkes now took his seat once more on the floor of the commons, and de- 
voted his energies anew in aid of the American cause. While in his seat. Lord 
North introduced a bill, for the increase of the military force in North America, and 
to restrain the entire commerce of the colonies with all the British ports. ]\Ir. Fox 
moved an amendment striking vitally at the whole bill. The bill was carried, nev- 
ertheless. It was pending the debate on this bill that Wilkes declared, in his place, 
that " revolution was not rebellion,''^ and added the following remarkable prediction : 
'• If the Americans should be successful," intimating the strong probability of such 
an issue, " they may hereafter celebrate the revolution of 1775, as the English did 
that of 1668." A prediction that has been fully verified, as every return of the fourth 
of July amply testifies. 

On his retirement from parliament, Mr. Wilkes was, in 1779, appointed to the high 
office of chamberlain of London. Soon after this elevation he abjured politics, and 
retired altogether from party warfare. He held this office a few years, when he re- 
tired altogether from public life, and lived in a state of strict retii-ement at his 
country seat in the Isle of Wight, indulging " his love for letters and rural enjoy- 
ments." Here he died in 1797, in the seventy-first year of his age. 




MAJOE GENERAL DAVID WOOSTER. 



DAVID WOOSTER was born at Stratford, Connecticut, on the 2d of March, 
1710. His family was highly respectable ; but owing to the destruction of the 
family papers when New Haven was sacked by the British during the war of the 
revolution, we are not able to give any account of his boyhood. His education was 
well cared for, and, in 1738, he was graduated at Yale College, in New Haven. 
When the colony built the guard-a-costa, to be used in case of attack by the Span- 
ish cruisers, in 1739, he was chosen the second in command, and after a short time 
was appointed captain. At the close of this service he married the eldest daughter 
of President Clap, of Yale College, a lady well suited to encounter the perilous times 
which were rapidly approaching. Her firmness, resolution, strength of mind, and re- 
fined manners were of essential use to him in the scenes of his remaining life. 

When Colonel Burr raised a regiment in Connecticut to join the troops destined to 
act against Louisburg, Captain Wooster was appointed to the command of a com- 
pany in that regiment, and took a prominent part in the siege and capture of that 
important fortress. After the capture he remained among those who had charge of 
the fortress, and was appointed to take charge of the cartel which was sent to France 



412 MAJOR GENERAL DAVID WOOSTER. 

for exchange of prisoners. He was not permitted to land in France ; bnt going* to 
England, he was received with considerable eclat. He became a favorite at court, 
and the king paid him considerable attention, presenting him with a captain's com- 
mission in the regiment of Sir William Pepperell, with half pay for life. 

After the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, Louisburg receded to France, and Captain 
Wooster retired to private life. He lived in New Haven for a short time in peace 
and happiness, when the roar of the troubled elements once more disturbed his re- 
pose and called him forth to new scenes of strife and glory. In 1756, he was made 
colonel of a regiment, and afterward was advanced to the command of a brigade, 
which office he held until the peace of 1763, when he once more retired to New Ha- 
ven and entered into mercantile pursuits. About this time he was appointed collector 
of customs of that port. 

The troublous times of the revolution had ah-eady begun to test the patriotism of 
aD men of station and influence. From the first General Wooster took a decidedly 
patriotic stand ; and when the drama opened on the fields of Lexington and Concord, 
notwithstanding he held several offices under seal of the king, he did not hesitate to 
rally with the patriots, and to stake life, honor, and property in favor of human rights 
and the independence of the colonies. Feeling how important it was that the col- 
onists should be in possession of the strongholds of the country, he, with a few others, 
planned the famous expedition against Ticonderoga, which was so successfully car- 
ried into execution by those brave soldiers A]-nold and Allen. 

When, in 1775, Congress voted to create an army, Wooster was the third in rank 
among the brigadier generals appointed on that occasion. This year he was able to 
render but little service ; but in the campaign of 1776, whose field of important 
operations lay on the Canadian frontier, he saw much hard service, although he 
won but few laurels. At his own request Congress instituted an inquiry into his 
conduct during the campaign, and acquitted him of all blame. 

In 1776-7, he was appointed major general of the militia of Connecticut, and had 
oversight of the military stores which were kept in the neighborhood of Danbury. 
Hearing that the British had landed near Danbury with a force of two thousand men, 
he immediately started, in company with General Arnold and a small body of troops, 
for the protection of that place. But the enemy were too quick for him, and the 
whole of the stores fell into their hands. General Wooster, with his six hundred raw 
troops, fell upon tlie enemy while in full retreat and fearlessly attacked them. But 
their strength was too great for his feeble forces, and they were soon scattered by the 
fierceness of the attack of the enemy, who were supported by several pieces of artil- 
lery. In the fight General Wooster received a mortal wound. He died in the arms 
of his family, who had been sent for, on the 2d of May, 1777. " I am dying," said 
he, " but with the strong hope and persuasion that my country will gain her inde- 
pendence." He was buried in the churchyard of the village he died defending, and 
Congress voted five hundred dollars for his monument. But it has never been erected, 
and no stone marks the spot where the hero rests. 




REV. MATHER BYLES. 



MATHER BYLES, "the tory minister of Boston," — an ominous distinction in 
those days of bitter party spirit, — was born in Boston, March 26, 1706. He 
was descended, in the maternal line, from the Mathers and the Cottons, and seems to 
have inherited the Mathers' love for learning and eccentricity. Even while a youth 
he exhibited the strongest love for the pursuits of literature, and at nineteen he was 
graduated from the university at Cambridge with a high standing. 

After leaving college, Mr. Byles devoted several years to the study of theology and 
general literature, and then commenced preaching. In 1733, he was invited to assume 
the charge of the Hollis Street Church and Society in Boston. Accepting the call, 
he was ordained accordingly on the 20th of December of the same year. He soon 
acquired a high reputation as a preacher, and became quite famous in the region 
around Boston, as well for his eccentric manners as the elegance of his discourses. 
He lived happily with his people until the question of British right to dictate laws 
for her American colonies disturbed the repose of those colonies. As a general thing, 
the clergy were among the foremost to espouse the side of the patriot? ; and perhaps 
no other class of men did more to promote the severance of the colonies from the 



4U REV. MATHER BYLES. 

authority of 1he parent country. Mr. Byles, however, was not of this class. Whether 
from a preference for English institutions, or whether from a weak fear that the col- 
onists would fail, and a want of moral courage to meet the exigency, or whatever may 
have been his reasons, he attached himself to the loyal side of the quarrel. Here the 
great conflict found him ; and such was the patriotism of his church and the people of 
Boston generally, that he had to give up bis charge, and bis connection with his flock 
was accordingly dissolved in 1776. 

Mr. Byles was formally accused of attachment to the English cause. " The sub- 
stance of the charges against him was,'^ says one of his biographers, " that he con- 
tinued in Boston with his family during the siege, that he prayed for the king and the 
safety of the town, and that he received the visits of British officers. In May, 1777, 
he was denounced in town meeting as a person inimical to America ; after which he 
was obfiged to enter into bonds for his appearance at a public trial before a special 
court on the 2d of June following. He was pronounced guilty, and sentenced to con- 
finement on board a guard ship, and in forty days to be sent with his family to Eng- 
land, When brought before the board of war, by whom he was treated respectfully, 
his sentence seems to have been altered, and it was directed that he should be con- 
fined to his own house, and a guard placed over him there. This was accordingly 
done for a few weeks, and then the guard was removed. A short time afterwards a 
guard was again placed over him, and again dismissed. Upon this occasion he ob- 
served, in his own manner, that he was guarded, reguarded, and disregarded." 

Mr. Byles was never again connected with a parish, but continued to live in Bos- 
ton, where he had many friends both among the whigs and tories. His presence in 
any company was a sure pledge of enjoyment. He had wonderful conversational 
powers, and his keen wit flashed out occasionaUy with a brilliancy quite remarkable. 
His power of repartee was such that few dared to measure lances with him. He 
acquired such a propensity for making puns that they often appeared in his prayers 
and sermons ; and " when the fit was on " he forgot himself, and dealt bis keen satire 
alike to friend and foe. 

The literary acquisitions of Dr. Byles introduced him to the acquaintance of many 
men of genius in England ; and the names of Pope, Lansdowne, and Watts are 
found among his correspondents. From the former he received a copy of an elegant 
edition of the Odyssey in quarto. Dr. Watts sent him copies of his works as he 
published them. His personal appearance was commanding, and he was a graceful and 
impressive preacher. It was the custom of the times to take the subject of politics 
into the pulpit, a practice which he severely reprobated. On being once asked by an 
influential member of his church why he did not preach politics, he repfied, " I have 
thrown up four breastworks, behind which I have intrenched myself, neither of which 
can be forced. In the first place, I do not understand politics ; in the second place, 
you all do, every man and mother's son of you ; in the third place, you have politics 
all the week, pray let one day in seven be devoted to refigion ; in the fourth place, I 
am engaged in a work of infinitely greater importance. Give me any subject to 
preach on of more consequence than the truths I bring to you, and I will preach on 
it the next sabbath." 

In 1783, Dr. Byles was seized with a paralytic affection from which he never re- 
covered, and which put an end to his existence on the 5th of July, 1788, at the age 
of eighty-two years. 




COLONEL FRANCIS BARBER 



FRANCIS BARBER was descended from the Scots, and was born at Princeton, 
New Jersey, in 1751. His classical education was pursued at the college at 
Princeton, at the conclusion of which he was placed at the head of the academy at 
Elizabethtown, in the same state. Under his charge the classical department of the 
academy reached a high degree of popularity, and became the resort of the sons of 
the best families in Philadelphia and New York, as well as New Jersey. Among 
others, he had charge of Alexander Hamilton, one of the most celebrated statesmen 
of that or any age. 

On the opening of the great drama of the revolution, young Barber, with his two 
younger brothers, John and William, entered at once the service of their country. 
Francis was made major in the New Jersey line on the 9th of February, 1776, and, 
on the 8th of November following, lieutenant colonel in the third Jersey regiment, 
by the New Jersey legislature. On the 1st of January, 1777, Congress renewed the 
commission, and soon after he was appointed assistant inspector general under the 
Baron Steuben. 

During the whole course of the war. Colonel Barber was in constant and active 
service. His selection to ti at office showed the sagacity of the commander-in-chief, 



416 COLONEL FRANCIS BARBER. 

who, together with Stueben, did not withhold their respected approval of his con- 
duet. " Although a strict, nay, rigid disciplinarian," says one of his biographers, 
" always scrupulously performing his own duty, and requiring it from all under his 
command, yet so bland were his manners, and bis whole conduct so tempered with 
justice and strict propriety, that be was the favorite of all the officers and men, and 
possessed the confidence and friendship, not only of the general officers, but also of 
the commander-in-chief." 

Colonel Barber was ordered to join the northern army, under Schuyler, in the 
campaign of 1777, and rendered that general very valuable aid in the discipline of 
his troops. He marched from Ticonderoga with the army ordered to join Washing- 
ton, then encamped on the Delaware, and was in season to take part in the unfor- 
tunate affairs of Trenton and Princeton. He was also engaged in the battles of 
Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth. In this latter contest he received a 
severe wound, which prevented his taking an active part in the remainder of the 
campaign. But his active spirit could not remain idle even while his lacerated body 
was confined to his bed. He kept a vigilant eye on the movements of the enemy, 
and was in close correspondence all the while with both Washington and Steuben, 
each of whom paid him the highest compliments for the skilful discharge of his 
duties, and expressed for him the true respect and regard of a soldier and friend. 

In the expedition against the Indians, conducted by General Sullivan, Colonel 
Barber served as adjutant general. At the battle of Newtown he received a slight 
wound, and at the close of the expedition the encomiums of his superior officer. In 
the unfortunate mutiny of the soldiers of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey lines, 
which occurred in the winter of 1780-81, the popularity of Colonel Barber enabled 
him to exert a control over the refractory soldiers which no other officer dared under- 
take. Through a wise and sagacious treatment of the government, and a timely 
arrival in camp of supplies, the mutiny was at length completely quelled, and the 
confidence of the men so far restored that they consented to continue in the service. 

In 1781, Colonel Barber accompanied the army in their southward march, and 
was in season to partake in the reduction of Yorktown, and share in the glory of that 
finishing stroke to the war. 

When the news of the ratification of peace reached head quarters, Washington 
invited the officers of the army to dine with him, intending to communicate the joy- 
ful intelligence while over their wine. Colonel Barber had received intimation of 
the state of things, and was looking forward to that reunion with the feeling that 
one who had braved the horrors of a seven years' war might be expected to cherish. 
But he was not permitted to share that conviviality. He had escaped the thousand 
fatal chances of war unscathed, but he could not evade the summons to an inglo- 
rious death. He was acting officer for the day, and on passing the skirts of a wood 
where some soldiers were chopping, a falling tree crushed both rider and horse to the 
earth, and killed them instantly. Thus died this brave officer and gallant gentleman, 
in the prime of manhood, aged only thirty-two. 




RICHARD HENRY LEE 



"O ICHARD HENRY LEE was born in Virginia, in 1732. Of his childhood 
jL\) and youth we have been able to glean nothing worth recording, except that he 
was sent to England to obtain hirf education. In his earliest manhood we find him 
taking a marked part in the political agitations of those troubled times. His strong 
and patriotic heart, aided by a thorough classical education, gave him the position 
of a leader. To him has been ascribed the first regular attempt at resistance to 
British aggression, though that point is not clear. In 1773, as a member of the 
House of Burgesses of Virginia, he proposed the formation of that famous " com- 
mittee of correspondence," whose investigations and appeals roused, not only the 
heart of Virginia, but of the whole country. 

It is difficult for us, who are basking in the sunny and invigorating light of our 
national liberty, justly to estimate the noble motives and lofty courage of those holy 
sires who made their exodus from the land of bondage through fire, and flood, and 
blood, and led us, their children, into the pleasant valleys and broad savannas of 
political freedom. It ought to be stamped into the grain and texture of every young 
American heart — the high debt of gratitude we owe them, and the strong obli- 
gation under which we are laid faithfully and sacredly to keep the vestal fire they 
kindled on our national altars. 



418 RICHARD HENRY LEE 

On the assembling of the first Congress, Richard Henry Lee was there to repre- 
sent the burghers of his own Virginia-, not as a mere looker-on, — there were few 
of that body who did not act, — but as a worker in the glorious cause to which be 
and his coadjutors had ''pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honors." 
He was among the foremost who went for an open and explicit declaration of inde- 
pendence, and the clear, strong, and patriotic views he so vehemently urged before 
that body did much to strengthen the timid and irresolute, and to confirm the doubt- 
ing, in their patriotism. He introduced that immortal resolution, containing the gist 
of our declaration of independence, " That these United Colonies are, and of right 
ought to be, free and independent states ; that they are absolved from all allegiance 
to the British crown ; and that all political connection between them and Great 
Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." When the committee to draft the 
declaration was appointed, Mr. Lee was in Virginia, having been suddenly sum- 
moned home on account of the illness of some member of his family, and thus Mr. 
Jefferson was placed at the head of that committee, which honor belonged of right 
to him, as the mover of the resolution. His name, however, stands among the bright 
galaxy which adorns that remarkable state paper. 

Mr. Lee resumed his seat in Congress the next month, and continued to occupy a 
seat in that body until June, 1777. He was subsequently elected to Congress, but 
ill health compelled him to be absent much of the time during the sessions of 1778— 
79. On this account he declined the honor, until 1784, when be again reluctantly 
consented to serve. On taking his seat he was unanimously called on to preside, 
which he did with great dignity, and much to the satisfaction of that august body. 

In 1792, Mr. Lee retired altogether from public life, his body having been worn out 
in the service of his country. Two years after the period of his retirement, his ex- 
hausted powers sank into the repose of death — i. e., on the 19th of June, 1794. 

The name of Richard Henry Lee stands among the highest on the scroll of his 
country's fame. As a patriot, as a man, as a friend, and as an orator, he had few 
equals. Enemies he had, but they were few, while his friends were as the leaves of 
the forest ; and he went to his rest with the blessings of the multitude resting on 
his monument. 




MAJOR GENERAL WILLIAM MOULTRIE. 

WILLIAM MOULTRIE, one of the bravest of South Carolina's sons, was 
born in 1730. At the age of thirty he entered the service of his country as 
a volunteer, under Governor Lyttleton, against the Cherokee Indians, whose ma- 
rauding parties had inspired the southern settlements with terror. Men, women, and 
children were savagely murdered, and carried into captivity to be barbarously tor- 
mented for a season, and then despatched at the stake, or by the edge of the toma- 
haw^k. Nothing came of this campaign, nor of a second under Colonel Montgom- 
ery, in which Moultrie again served as a volunteer. The Indians flying to their 
impenetrable fastnesses, eluded pursuit, and were ready at a moment's warning to 
sally forth again on their work of devastation and death. In 1761, a third expe- 
dition, in which he served as captain, was more successful. The Cherokees weie 
humbled, and glad to sue for peace. 

Captain Moultrie was among the first and foremost of those who asserted the 
rights of the colonists against the aggi-essions of the parent country, and who 
" stirred up the people to mutiny." On the commencement of hostilities he was 
already engaged in active service, having been appointed by the Provincial Congress, 
on the ever-memorable 17th of June, 1775, a colonel in the second of the two regi- 

20 



420 MAJOR GENERAL WILLIAM MOULTRIE. 

merits voted to be raised by that body. To him belongs the honor of raising the hrst 
American flag ; a device of his ow^n, being " blue, with a white crescent in the 
dexter corner." His first service was his gallant defence of Sullivan's Island, on 
which a fort had been erected, and to which was given, subsequently, the name of 
its heroic defender. To this day — to the end of time may it be so — it is known 
as " Fort Moultrie." Congress voted its thanks unanimously, and the lady of 
Major Elliott presented his regiment with a splendid pair of colors. One of these 
colors was lost at the battle of Savannah, the other was rescued by the brave Ser- 
geant Jasper, who received his death shot in the gallant act. 

Shortly after this. Colonel Moultrie was sent into Georgia to defend Savannah. 
While here his troops came into the line of the continental army, and he received 
the commission of brigadier general. In February, 1779, with a few hundred troops, 
he defeated a greatly superior force of the enemy near Beaufort. 

General Lincoln now received the command of the southern army, and ordered 
General Moultrie to the defence of Charleston, upon which General Provost soon 
marched with four thousand men. As the city was on the point of surrendering. 
General Lincoln, who had been informed of their peril, appeared to their deliverance, 
and the British retired. Afterward, in the spring of 1780, he was compelled to sur- 
render the city, after defending it against a fearful odds for more than a month. He 
became, after the fall of Charleston, a prisoner of war, until February, 1782, when 
he was exchanged for General Burgoyne. 

While a prisoner of war the British attempted to bribe him, through Lord Charles 
Montague, whose name has received an indelible stain for the part he took in the 
matter, while the fame of the South Carolina patriot shines forever with a brighter 
lustre. " When I entered into this contest," is his patriotic reply, " I did- it with the 
most mature deliberation, and a determined resolution to risk my life and fortune in 
the cause. I shall continue to go on as I have begun, that my example may en- 
courage the youths of America to stand forth in the defence of their rights and lib- 
erties. You tell me I have a fair opening of quitting that service by going to 
Jamaica. Good God ! Is it possible that such a sentiment could find place in the 
breast of a man of honor? You tell me that by quitting the country for a season 
I might avoid disagreeable conversations, and return again at my leisure to regain 
my estates ; but you forget to tell me how I am to get rid of the feelings of an in- 
jured, honest heart ; where I am to hide from myself. Could I be guilty of such 
baseness, I should shun mankind, and hate myself I" 

After the war. General Moultrie retired to his estates in South Carolina, and was 
elected governor of that state in 1785-6, and again in 1794-5. He died on the 27th 
of September, 1805, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. 

General Moultrie wrote and published the memoirs of the war in the south of the 
revolution, in nearly all of whose scenes he took an active and glorious part. 




OUTACITE. 



THE " Creeks " comprise several tribes of Indians, as the Muskagoes, the Ca- 
tawbas, the Chickasaws, and the Cherokees, and derive their general name 
from the country in which they live, it abounding with creeks. They embrace the 
whole range of country extending from the Savannah River on the south, to the Mis- 
sissippi River on the west, and the country bordering on the Ohio River on the north. 
The chief of these tribes are the Cherokees, who have made a nearer approach to 
civilization than any other Indian tribe among the Creeks. 

« The Cherokees have now a written language, and, before the late troubles with 
Georgia, were making good advancement in all the useful arts. One of the most 
remarkable discoveries of modern times has been made by a Cherokee Indian, named 
George Guess. His invention was that of a syllabic alphabet of the language of 
his nation, which he applied to writing with unparalleled success. Young Chero- 
kees learned by it to write letters to their friends in three days' time ; and although 
the inventor used a part of the English alphabet in making up his own, yet he was 
acquainted vAih no other language but the Cherokee. This invention was brought 
to maturity in 1826. Two years after, a newspaper, called the ' Cherokee Phoenix,' 
was established in the Cherokee nation, printed chiefly in Cherokee, with an Eng- 



;:r2 OUTACITE. 

lish translation. Being considered an independent nation, they instituted a form of 
government similar to that of the United States. 

" The Cherokees have withstood the deletery effects of civilization much beyond 
what can be said of any other tribe of Indians. Their country is chiefly in Ala- 
bama, Mississippi, and Tennessee ; but they occupy also the western part of the state 
of Georgia. Before the war of 1812, their country covered twenty-four thousand 
square miles." 

It was of this tribe that Outacite, written Wootasitaw, Wbosatasite, Woosetasi- 
taw, Otacite, and Olassite, was a daring and warlike chief. Nothing is known 
of his early life. When, in 1723, the English entered into negotiation with the 
Creeks, he is styled " Wootassite, king of the lower and middle settlements of 
the Cherokees." He was then a young man, and his birth could not have been far 
from the commencement of the eighteenth century. 

In 1721, Francis Nicholson went over as governor of South Carolina, and was 
said to have been very successful in managing affairs with the Indians. Soon after 
his arrival, the Cherokees despatched messengers to Charleston to adjust some diffi- 
culties which had for some time existed ; and, not long after, another more full and 
complete deputation arrived. Governor Nicholson opened the council by a long 
speech to " Wootassite, king, and to the heads of the lower and middle settlements 
of the Cherokee nations," 

In the course of this speech, he speaks of the complaints of certain of the Eng- 
lish, and after laying much stress on their submission to the King of England, and 
declaring that, "if an Indian shall injure an Englishman, or he an Indian, the in- 
jured party may exact restitution," he goes on to say : " Frequent complaints have 
been made that your people have often broke open the stores-belonging to our traders, 
and carried away their goods, and also pillaged several of their packs, when em- 
ployed and intrusted to carry them up ; and restitution has never been made, which 
are great faults. We therefore recommend to you to take all possible precautions 
to prevent such ill practices for the future," etc. " And to prevent any injury or 
misunderstanding, we have passed a law, which appoints commissioners that are to 
go twice a year to the Congaree or Savana garrison, to hear and redress all griev- 
ances." 

Again we hear of " Otassitie," in negotiation with the English, in 1759. This 
was several years after he visited England, where he received the greatest attentions 
both from the royal family as well as the nobles and gentry. 

We have compiled the above meagre sketch from Drake, a gentleman who has 
laid the country under obligations for his Indian researches, and his persevering en- 
deavors to snatch the perishing memorials of our Indian tribes from utter ruin. 
When Outacite died, and how, we have no means of knowing. 




COUNT DUMAS. 

MATHIEU DUMAS, count, the soldier and historian, was born at Montpelier, 
France, in 1753. He was educated in the best schools in the kingdom, and 
finished with a term or two at the military academy at Paris. Having chosen the 
profession of arms, he entered the French army at twenty, and soon after accompa- 
nied Count de Rochambeau to America, to fight in the cause of the patriotic colo- 
nists, who had taken up arms against the arbitrary impositions of the British crown. 

Count Dumas served with distinction throughout the southern war. While the 
American army were constantly narrowing the chances of escape to the boastful 
Cornwallis, and he at length was safely cooped up in Yorktown, Dumas, with others 
of his French comrades in arms, covered himself \vith glory, and received the thanks 
of the commander-in-chief. Under direction of Count Rochambeau, he rendered 
efficient aid to the American cause during the siege, and deserved, as he received, 
the congratulations of the whole American community. 

A combination of circumstances served to give success to the cause of revolution- 
ary liberty. Among them perhaps the most prominent was the aid the French so 
nobly afforded us in our struggle. Generously volunteering their own presence and 
that of the troops they commanded, with small hope of pecuniary reward, and that 
too, in aid of strangers, they deserve the lasting gratitude of every American citizen. 



424 COUNT DUMAS 

On the conclusion of the war, Colonel Dumas returned to France, and reentered 
the service of his native country, and was made lieutenant general. The condition 
of France not demanding his immediate active service, he entered into the holy alli- 
ance of wedlock with Julia de La Rue, and passed a few months in the soft dalliance 
of the honeymoon and in travel. 

In 1789, he was chosen to the legislative assembly. At this period he plunged 
deeply into the political questions and changes which agitated France, and was 
actively engaged in the republican cause until the battle of Waterloo took away the 
last prop of Napoleon, and made way for the return of the Bourbons to power. He 
wielded a vigorous pen, and some of his satires are of the most stringent kind. He 
also found time to study literature, and many of his productions give no indication 
of the stirring scenes in which he moved. 

In the beginning of the "reign of terror," in company with Count Lamath, he 
and his family went over to England. After a short tarry in this asylum, he once 
more trusted himself within the whirlpool of Jacobinism; and had he not made 
special haste to get into Switzerland, he had been ingulfed in the human maelstrom 
which swallowed up the best blood of France. 

Once more we find him acting with La Fayette, — "the great and good," — in 
reorganizing the republican government and the national guard, and on its comple- 
tion, as a reward for his faithful and valuable services, he was elevated to the cham- 
ber of peers. He served in the array, and was with Bonaparte in some of his most 
ensanguined battles, sharing with his beloved general the defeat of the bloody field 
of Waterloo. 

The knell of freedom having been tolled for France, his occupation gone, Count 
Dumas turned his attention to literature. The most prominent work he gave the 
world was the " Memoirs of his own Times," covering the space from 1773 to 1826. 
His age at this latter date was seventy-three. 

In the revolution of 1830, he took a prominent part, and aided in placing Louis 
Philippe on the throne, a piece of republicanism which only French ethics can ex- 
plain. He died in 1837, at the advanced age of eighty-four years. 




•NX 



GOVERNOR ISAAC SHELBY. 



ISAAC SHELBY was the son of a brave soldier, General Evan Shelby, who 
rendered valuable service to his country in the old French and Indian wars, as 
well as in the revolution. He was born in Maryland, December 11, 1750. The con- 
dition of the country and the military life of his father rendered it impossible to 
acquire such an education as he desired. But, like his father, he was accustomed 
to out-door exercise, and became hardy and shrewd, capable of enduring great 
fatigue, and taking the best advantage of every outward difficulty. All this emi- 
nently fitted him for the rough-and-tumble of a backwoods' life, and constituted him 
an eminent partisan leader of the patriots of the south. 

In 1771, on reaching his majority, he removed to western Virginia, where he was 
appointed lieutenant to a company of militia, and in that capacity was with his 
father in the sanguinary battle of the 10th of October, 1774, near the mouth of the 
Kenhawah. Lord Dunmore having caused a fort to be raised on the spot where this 
fight occurred, Lieutenant Shelby remained with the garrison until, by the same 
orders, it was broken up and abandoned, through fear that it might become a strong- 
hold to the enemy. 

In 1776, he was appointed captain of a company of minute men, and from this 



42(3 GOVERNOR ISAAC SHELBY. 

time until 1780 he was constantly engaged in the commissary department of the 
army, in which difficult post he rendered efficient aid and comfort to our troops. In 
1779, he was appointed major in the "escort guards," by Governor Jefferson, while 
he was a member of the Virginia legislature, to which he had been just before elected. 
On the reestablishment of the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina, 
the same year, his residence fell into North Carolina, and Governor Caswell ap- 
pointed him colonel to a new regiment raised on that occasion. 

On the fall of Charleston, Colonel Shelby summoned the militia of his county, 
and calling on them to volunteer in aid of their southern brethren, was soon on his 
way over the mountains at the head of three hundred mounted riflemen. Reaching 
in safety the camp of McDowell, which was situated near the Cherokee ford of 
Broad River, he engaged immediately in a partisan warfare, which resulted in many 
a sharp conflict, and which was generally in favor of his hardy horsemen, but which 
our limits forbid us to particularize. This was the gloomiest period of the war. 
Cornwallis, with an army of nine thousand men, lay at Charlottetown, North Caro- 
lina, and Furguson with an army of three thousand at Gilberttown. 

At the suggestion of Colonel Shelby, a large force was raised, who marched hasti- 
ly through the mountains, and being reenforced on reaching the level country, they 
came upon Furguson, who was strongly encamped in King Mountain, and who had 
declared " that God Almighty could not displace him," drove him from his fastnesses, 
and slew three hundred and seventy-five officers and men, among them Furguson 
himself, and captured near one thousand prisoners and much valuable booty. This 
unexpected defeat was a check to the proud progress of Cornwallis. The battle of 
the Cowpens speedily followed, and the downfall of British power in the south came 
soon after. During the remainder of the war he served under the brave Marion in 
the south, and was engaged in several severe but ruinous contests which followed. 

In 1782, Colonel Shelby was elected a member of the North Carolina assembly, 
and was appointed a commissioner with others to settle certain preemption claims 
upon the Cumberland River. In 1792, he was elected a member of the convention 
which formed the first constitution of Kentucky, and was elected its first governor. 
Several times he was chosen presidential elector, and again, in 1812, he was elected 
to the executive chair of state. In 1813, he organized a body of four thousand vol- 
unteers, at whose head, at the age of sixty-three years, he marched into Canada, 
under Harrison, for the defence of our northern frontier. For the part he took in 
that campaign he was awarded, by Congress, a gold medal and thanks. In 1817, 
he declined the ofter, made by Monroe, of the office of secretary of war. In 1818, 
he, was united with General Jackson as a commissioner to treat with the Chickasaw 
Indians. This was the closing act of his public life. Early in February, 1820, he 
was visited with paralysis, which, although it considerably affected one side of his 
body, left his strong mind untouched, until in 1826, when, on the 18th of July, a 
second stroke cut him down suddenly in the seventy-sixth year of his age. 




^^' >? r:^ 



REBECCA MOTTE. 



T is pleasant to contemplate the heroic conduct of many of the noble women 
who bore a courageous part in the great struggle of our fathers for their inde- 
pendence. The intelligent forecast, the presence of mind and great fortitude in the 
most painful situations, the heroic speech and more heroic conduct, show that not 
all the hearts of oak were wrapped up in the bosoms of the sterner sex. Mrs. Ellet, 
from whose excellent work we have selected the materials for this and the memoirs 
of some other heroines of seventy-six, has done good service to her sex and man- 
kind in her faithful portraitures of " The Women of the Revolution." 

Rebecca Brewster was born on the 28th of June, 1738. Of her early life we 
know nothing. She was married to Jacob Motte, a rich planter of South Carolina, 
and became the mother of six children, three only of whom lived to mature age. 
At the age of seventy-seven, she died, in the midst of her friends and descendants, 
greatly beloved and respected. 

A few passages in her life are her best biography, and we proceed, therefore, to give 
them. Fort Motte stood on the south side of Congaree River, in South Carolina. 
At the time we write of, it was in possession of a body of British soldiery, under 
command of Captain McPherson. It was closely invested by Marion and Lee, who 

21 



428 REBECCA MQTTE. 

were exceeding anxious to reduce it before the expected supplies from Rawson 
should arrive to relieve it. Rawson had already abandoned Camden, and was has- 
tening with his whole force to succor McPherson. The Americans redoubled their 
exertions. The large, new mansion of Mrs. Motte, from which she had been driven 
by McPherson, surrounded by a deep and wide canal, was the stronghold of the 
English captain, and Lee and Marion resolved that victory depended on the destruc- 
tion of the house. They therefore reluctantly communicated the decision to Mrs. 
Motte, who bravely and cheerfully assented to the proposition, assuring the gallant 
officers that " she was gratified with the opportunity of contributing to the good of 
her country, and should view the approaching scene with delight." She even pre- 
sented the officers with a bow and apparatus, which had been brought from India 
by some member of her family, to facilitate the work of destruction. Every thing 
succeeded as they could have wished. The house was fired, and McPherson sent 
into the American camp the white flag. 

When an attack on Charleston was expected, and every able-bodied man was 
summoned to aid in throwing up embankments for defence, Mrs. Mott, having 
neither husband or son to render the duty of her family, — her husband had died in 
the early part of the war, — despatched a messenger to her plantation, and ordered 
down to Charleston all her slaves capable of labor, furnishing them, at her own ex- 
pense, with soldiers' rations and the implements needed in the emergency. Well 
might the country say of her, as the divine Master said of one of old time, " She 
hath done what she could." 

When, at length, Charleston fell into the hands of the enerfty, her own house, one 
of the finest in the city, was selected as the head quarters of the British officers. 
Resolved not to be driven forth from her home, she remained, and performed the 
duties of hostess to more than thirty English officers, compelled to listen often to 
the coarse abuse of the " Yankee rebels," which fell from the lips of these " gentle- 
men in gold and scarlet I" 

We have left the noblest act of her checkered life to be recorded last. When her 
husband died, his estates were very miich encumbered. This, with the effect of the 
war, so much reduced the means, that a large debt was left unsatisfied. With a 
self-denial and activity worthy all praise, and with a degree of skill remarkable in a 
woman, she not only succeeded in paying up all her husband's debts, but accumu- 
lated a handsome fortune to be distributed among his heirs after her decease 




DAVID RAMSAY, M. D. 



DAVID RAMSAY, well known as a distinguished historian, was born in Lan- 
caster county, Pennsylvania, on the 2d of April, 1749. The acquisitions of 
his childhood and youth in education were quite uncommon, and at the tender age 
of thirteen he entered the New Jersey College, at Princeton, a year in advance, 
graduating with a high standing at the age of nineteen, in the summer of 1768. 
He immediately commenced the study of medicine, and took his degree of M. D. 
in 1773. 

The following year he removed to Charleston, South Carolina, to practise his pro- 
fession, where he rose to a high eminence. On the opening of the revolution, he 
entered into all the plans of those patriots who were the leaders in that great drama. 
By his pen, and in the halls of legislation, he showed himself to be an efficient and 
uncompromising friend to his country. 

In 1782, he was elected to the General Congress. He took his seat in one of the 
darkest periods of our country's history. Having been an actor, to a considerable 
extent, in the exciting scenes which had been and were still enacting in the state 
and city of his adoption, he entered at once, heart and soul, into the discussion of 
the measures of that important session of Congress. Although he more particularly 



j^^Q DAVID RAMSAY, M. D. 

looked after the interests of South Carolina, his patriotism was manifested not the 
less for every portion of his suffering country. With great boldness and force he 
spoke and wrote while a member of that body, and his voice and his pen were al- 
ways on the side of freedom. 

When Dr. Ramsay had been a member of Congress three years, he was honorably 
noticed by that illustrious body, in his election to preside over their deliberations. 
For somewhat more than a year he occupied that conspicuous position, discharging 
its important and onerous duties with great fairness and ability. He was reelected, 
in the autumn of 1785, to a seat in the same body, which he held until the close of 
the session. 

The attention of Dr. Ramsay had been turned to the subject of American history, 
and, in 1785, he published a history of the revolutionary war in South Carolina, and 
while a member of the Congress of the same year, he collected the materials -for a 
full and complete history of the war, which work he gave to the world in two vol- 
umes, octavo, in 1790. This was a work of considerable merit, and was relied on 
for its correctness, as the author was witness of much that he described, and received 
most of his information of the rest of the war from the lips of those who had been 
prominent actors in its exciting scenes. It met with nearly universal approbation. 

His next work was the " Life of Washington," which is a pattern book of biog- 
raphy. As the author compiled the body of this work while the subject of it was 
yet alive, it could not be expected to be so complete as subsequent and recent biog- 
raphies of that immortal chief; but as an authentic record of what is therein related, 
it has generally been considered entirely reliable. It was published in 1801. 

In 1808, he published the history of South Carolina, in two volumes, octavo. He 
afterwards completed a history of the United States to the year 1808, and, had not 
death put a termination to his labors, it was his intention to have brought it down 
to the end of the war of 1812. This work has since been brought down to the treaty 
of Ghent, by the Rev. Dr. S. S. Smith, late president of Princeton College, and 
published. 

During his leisure hours for the last forty years of his life, he was employed in 
preparing for the press a series of historical volumes, which, since his death, have 
been published in nine volumes, octavo, entitled, " Universal History Americanized." 

This excellent man and distinguished historian was prematurely cut off in the 
midst of his arduous labors by the hand of an assassin, on the 8th of May, 1812, in 
the sixty-fourth year of his age. 

" As a husband, father, and Christian," says one of his biographers, " he was 
alike exemplary ; his habits were those of the strictest temperance. He usually 
slept four hours, rose before the light, and meditated with a book in his hand until 
he could see to read. He was parsimonious of his time to the highest degree. He, 
however, never read by the light of a candle ; with the first shades of the evening 
he laid aside his book and his pen, and, surrounded by his family and friends, gave 
loose to those paternal and social feelings which ever dwell in the bosom of a good 
man." 







w 



JOEL BARLOW, LL. D., 

AS born at Reading, Connecticut, in 1755. He was sent to Dartmonth Col- 
lege when very young, and afterwards entered Yale College, at New Haven, 
where he was graduated, in 1778, with distinguished excellence as a scholar. He 
had cultivated poetry while in college, and on his accession to a baccalaureate he 
delivered a poem. While in college he united himself to the militia, although he 
saw but little active service. On leaving college he entered the army as a chaplain, 
but on the establishment of peace he removed to Hartford, and commenced the 
study of the law, as being more congenial to his taste. While in the army he wrote 
" The Vision of Columbus," and on taking his master's degree he again delivered a 
poem, the title of which was the " Prospect of Peace," and which was afterwards 
published. 

In 1788, he visited Europe as land agent for the " Sciota Land Company." and 
on the discharge of the duties of his office on the continent he went over to London. 
There he published his " Advice to the Privileged Orders," and soon after his poem, 
" The Conspiracy of Kings." These publications procured him considerable ap 
clause, and brought him into notice among the literati of London and Paris. 

In 1792, the " London Constitutional Society," of which Mr. Barlow was a 



432 JOEL BARLOW, LL. D 

member, voted an address to the " National Convention of France," and requested 
him to deliver it. He was received with great honor nn Paris, voted the freedom of 
the city, and had conferred on him the rights of a French citizen, besides being 
invited to the houses of the great and the meetings of the various clubs and scien- 
tific and political societies of that city. It was while on this visit to France that he 
translated " Volney's Ruins." 

In the year 1795, he was appointed by his government at home American consul 
at Algiers, with powers to negotiate treaties of amity and commerce. He was also 
ordered to liberate all American citizens then in captivity in the Barbary kingdom. 
With these powers he proceeded to Algiers, and executed his mission success- 
fully, making glad the hearts of thousands by sending home all the Americans who 
were at that time held in bondage. On his return to Paris, he resigned his consulship 
and engaged in commercial pursuits, by which he amassed a handsome fortune, and 
returned to the United States in 1805. 

On reaching the United States, he selected the capital as the place of his future 
residence. Here he purchased a beautiful estate, and furnished his mansion in a 
splendid manner, living i^ that recherche manner which a man of literary taste so 
much desires, and which his wealth enabled him to do. His house was the resort 
of the talent and beauty of Washington. But he did not neglect his literary pur- 
suits. He finished and corrected for the press his great work, the " Columbiad," and 
which he sent out to the world in a style of magnificence quite rare on an American 
bookseller's counter at that day. 

In 1809, honors fell thick upon him, — the gifts of literary and scientific societies, 
— among others his alma mater bestowed on him the title of doctor of laws. 

In the spring of 1811, he was appointed minister plenipotentiary to France, and 
arrived at Paris the following summer. He immediately set himself to work with 
great diligence to accomplish the purposes of his mission, but with no favorable 
result. Every kind of embarrassment was thrown in his way, and every effort 
foiled. He could get no redress or remuneration for the spoliations of France on 
our commerce. Napoleon was away from Paris, waging his fierce wars with the 
enemies of the empire. At length he was invited, by the Duke of Bassano, to meet 
the emperor at W^ilna, for which place he immediately set off. Travelling day and 
night in the most inclement season of the year, exposed to the biting cold of these 
high latitudes, full of anxiety and care, his frame could not bear the unwonted press- 
ure, and yielded to the necessity of rest, for which he stopped at Zarnicawica, an 
obscure Polish town. But the strain on his system had been too much and too long 
continued to suffer it to recover itself, and he sank into the embrace of death on the 
22d day of December, 1812. His age was fifty-seven. 




DAVID HUMPHREYS 



DAVID HUMPHREYS was the son of a clergyman, and was born in Derby, 
Connecticut, in the year 1753. He entered Yale College at the age of fourteen, 
and received his diploma as a baccalaureate in 1771. Contemporaneous with Dwight, 
Barlow, and Trumbull, his way was cheered with their choice companionship, and 
bis literary efforts encouraged by their success. He early cultivated the acquaintance 
of the muses, although it could not be said with truth that he ever became a very 
brilliant poet. He became very patriotic, and his earlier effusions were dedicated to 
the holy cause of American freedom. 

Throwing down his pen, he took up the sword, and entered the continental army 
in 1777, with the rank of captain, being speedily promoted to that of major, in Par- 
son's brigade. The following year he was joined to the staff of General Putnam, 
as one of his aids. His intelligence and education, as well as his pleasing powers 
of address and conversation and his unsuspected patriotism, won for him the friend- 
ship and confidence of Greene, Parsons, Putnam, and Washington. In the family 
of the latter he was finally domiciliated, where he resided through the war. Wash- 
ington speaks of the poet-soldier in the highest terms; and at the surrender of the 
English army at Yorktown, the standards which fell into the hands of the Americans 



434 DAVID HUMPHREYS 

were consigned to his care. At the close of the war, Congress voted him the thanks 
of the nation, and presented him with an elegant sword. Having received the com- 
mission of lieutenant colonel, he remained in the staff of Washington until Decem- 
ber, 1783, and was present on the impressive occasion of his resigning the command 
of the army at Annapolis. 

[n the year following he was elected, by Congress, secretary to the " commission 
for negotiating treaties of commerce with foreign powers." In July he embarked 
for Europe. Jefl'erson, Kosciusko, and several other eminent men were companions 
of his voyage. The period of the commission was limited to two years, at the end 
of which time he returned home, and again took up his residence at Mount Vernon. 

On the occasion of the rebellion under Shays and Day, he was put in command 
of the regiment raised by the Connecticut legislature to quell the insurrection. His 
time of service was of short duration, and his actual duties few and bloodless ; and 
on the dispersion of the insurgents, in 1787, he was again invited to the hearth of 
Washington. 

In 1789, Congress appointed Colonel Humphreys a commissioner to treat with 
the southern Indians. In 1790, he was sent to represent his government in the court 
of Portugal, where he remained until 1797, when he was transferred to Spain in the 
same capacity. Here he remained until 1802, when Thomas Pinkney took his place, 
and he returned to the United States. 

While abroad. Colonel Humphreys cultivated his poetical talent, and produced 
some of his best pieces of composition. He also won the heart of a fair and wealthy 
lady, the daughter of John Bulkley, Esq., an eminent English merchant, then resi- 
dent in Lisbon. 

From this time until the breaking out of the war with England, in 1812, Colonel 
Humphreys devoted himself to agriculture and manufacturing in his native state, 
importing the finest breeds of horses and sheep ; for which he received the thanks of 
Congress and a suitably inscribed medal of gold. 

Congress had passed a law authorizing to be raised a brigade of " exempt volun- 
teers," the command of which was given to Humphreys, with a brigadier general's 
commission, which he retained during the war. 

This terminated his public career, when he retired to New Haven, between which 
and Boston he passed the remainder of his life. He died suddenly, of an affection 
of the heart, at New Haven, on the 21st of February, 1818, at the age of sixty-five. 

Colonel Humphreys was tall and well formed, impressing the beholder with the 
idea of great physical power, while his ample brow and piercing eyes gave the im- 
pression of more than ordinary intellectual strength. Minutely particular in his 
dress, and sensitive to a fault on the subject of etiquette, — never himself violating 
decorum, and never excusing its violation in others, — he had the appearance of great 
pride. But it was nothing more than a high-toned self-respect, perfectly consistent 
with his strong republicanism, which ruled all the actions of his long and active life. 




LADY nARRTET ACKLAND. 



rS^^HIS lady, whose romantic attachment to a rude and dissolute husband, and 
-J- wh(jse heroic conduct at the time he was taken prisoner awakened the admi 
ration of both the English and American armies on the bloody field of Saratoga, 
was born in England somewhere about the year 1750. Of her early life nothing is 
known save that she received an elegant education, was exceedingly lovely in her 
person, and possessed of the most engaging manners and conversation. 

About the time of the commencement of hostilities between the colonists and the 
mother country, she was married to Major Ackland, of the British army. It seems 
to have been entirely an affair of the heart, and the mutual attachment was 
very strong. He was a rough and somewhat dissolute man, of handsome person, 
bold, dashing, and gay ; she was as gentle as she was beautiful, and seemed made 
only to dwell in sunshine, and bask in the genial rays of love and refinement. Her 
gentleness acted as a charm on her husband — he loved her with a strong affection, 
and treated her with corresponding kindness. 

In the autumn of 1776, when the division to which his regiment belonged was 
placed under command of General Burgoyne, and ordered to America, the young 
wife of Major Ackland determined to share his fortunes in the campaign which fol- 

22 



436 LADY HARRIET ACKLAND 

lowed, and accordingly embarked with her husband for Canada. In the spring of 
1777, the splendid army of Bm-goyne, with all the pomp and circumstance of glo- 
rious war, with hopes high as their boastings, set out on that campaign so re- 
nowned in the annals of our revolutionary contest, and which resulted so disastrously 
to the cause of English oppression in the American colonies. 

Delicately reared, and accustomed as she was to every kind of refined indulgence. 
Lady Harriet shared the rude hardships of her husband's lot with a ready mind, and 
shrank from none of the dangers or perils of which an invading camp is so full, 
considering them as nothing to a separation from the object of her affections. While 
in camp she did not a little towards softening the bitterness of political animosity, 
and rendered most valuable service after every battle by her gentle and assiduous at- 
tentions to the wounded officers and soldiers, endearing herself to every one in the 
army. 

On the ever-to-be-remembered 7th of October, 1777, the fatal battle of Saratoga 
was fought, which resulted in the utter humiliation of the British lion, and the entire 
destruction of the northern portion of the English army in America. In that battle 
Major Ackland received a severe wound, and was taken prisoner, and carried into 
the American lines. In company with Madame de Riedesel, Lady Harriet had 
looked on the sad havoc of that bloody field through the livelo.ng day, the cannon 
balls of the American artillery tearing up the ground in every direction around the 
securest tent which could be found ; and when a cessation of arms took place be- 
cause of the terrible darkness of the approaching night, word reached the ears of the 
distressed wife that her beloved husband was wounded and a prisoner. She imme- 
diately made up her mind to join him and share his captivity, that she might soothe 
his distress and minister to his comfort. 

Applying to the commander-in-chief, she received a note to General Gates, com- 
mending her to his protection, and at once embarking in an open boat, in one of the 
darkest and stormiest nights of October, proceeded to the American camp, her only 
companions being the Rev. Mr. Brudenell, a chaplain in the English army, her own 
maid, and her husband's valet. She was received with great kindness by the Amer- 
ican general and his subordinate officers; and while she remained among them was 
treated with great consideration, winning the admiration of all who beheld her by 
the loveliness of her mind and person. 

After their return to England, Major Ackland fell in a duel. The shock to his 
loving wife was such that she was deprived of her reason for two full years. Dur- 
ino- all this time she had received the kind attentions of the chaplain who had 
accompanied her across the "raging water" on the night after the battle of Bemis's 
Height, on her visit to the pallet of her wounded and imprisoned husband. Some 
years after the recovery of her reason and health, she suflfered herself once more to 
be led to the altar by the gallant and attentive chaplain, and became the wife of 
Rev. Mr. Brudenell. She lived many years in great happiness with her second hus- 
band, when he also died. She survived him many years, and lived to a great age, 
retaining much of her loveliness until the last. 




GENERAL ANDREW PICKENS. 



ANDREW PICKENS, whose ancestors were driven out of France by the revo- 
cation of the edict of Nantes, and, after settling in Scotland, removed to this 
country, was born in Paxton, Pennsylvania, on the 19th of September, 1739. At a 
tender age his father removed to Virginia, and, in 1752, settled in the Waxhaws, 
South Carolina. The situation of that frontier country prevented any systematic 
attention being paid to his education. He was endowed with uncommon sagacity 
and courage — qualities which rendered him eminently fitted for the perilous duties 
in which he was destined to be engaged. During the French war, he served in 
the ranks. About a year before the close of the war, he fell desperately in love with 
a beautiful refugee from the Long Cane settlement, who came to the Waxhaws for 
protection, and at the close of the war returned with his bride to Long Cane, and 
settled near where Abbeville Court House now stands. 

When the revolution commenced, he found himself burdened with a family of 
small children ; but this did not deter him from early offering his best services to his 
country. The inhabitants of South Carolina were about equally divided into whigs 
and tories, giving a civil character to the war, which was often waged by families of 
the same neighborhood — nay, by members of the same family — against each other, 



433 GENERAL ANDREW PICKENS. 

and, as is often the case in such circumstances, with the most fiendish and deadly 
malignity. Hence the partisan character of the war in that section — a state of 
things not admitting of brilliant victories, but requiring the utmost address and 
coolest courage. 

At the very commencement of the war, Mr. Pickens had himself raised a com- 
pany of militia, who at once chose him as their captain, and soon after Congress 
appointed him to the command of one of the two regiments raised in the Carolinas 
at the opening of the war. Joined with the glorious Marion and the chivalrous 
Snrapter, the trio kept up a constant guerilla warfare for the space of three years 
preceding the battles of King Mountain and the Cowpens. It is impossible to re- 
ceive at this distant time any correct idea of the value or difficulty of this mode of 
warfare. The country new, with few roads, swarming with hostile Indians and 
tories, destitute of the munitions of war, poorly fed and worse clad, now scouring 
the savannas with their fleet horses, now cutting their way with their swords through 
the impenetrable canebrakes, now climbing almost inaccessible mountains, and now 
wading through nearly bottomless morasses; to-day surprised by an ambuscade of 
bloodthirsty savages, every one of whom was paid for the scalps he could send into 
a Christian camp ; to-morrow compelled to butcher their neighbors, and often rela- 
tives, and burn their dwellings, — it must have been a service of horror, through 
which nothing could have sustained these brave and self-sacrificing men but the 
thought that they were suffering for the cause of freedom, and fighting for the liberty 
of their beloved country. 

General Pickens was at the battle of Stono, and had his horse shot under him. 
At the Cowpens he commanded the militia under Morgan, and contributed not a 
little to the glorious victory of that day. After this brilliant affair — for which Con- 
gress presented him wath an elegant sword, and voted him the thanks of the country 
— he went to South Carolina, and assisted Marion in the bloody conflict at the 
Eutaws, in which battle he was severely wounded, his life only being saved by the 
buckle of his sword belt, which turned the ball from a fatal direction. 

The war being closed, he was called on to serve his country in various civil ca- 
pacities. He was frequently a member of the legislature, and held a seat in the 
convention which framed the constitution of his adopted state. In 1794, he was 
sent to Congress, and when reelected declined, and accepted a seat in the state legis- 
lature. Washington repeatedly made him tempting offers of honorable public ser- 
vice, but he uniformly declined them. Under the new organization of the militia, in 
1794, he was made one of the two major generals to which South Carolina was en- 
titled. Retiring altogether from public life, he spent the remainder of his days on 
his farm in peaceful seclusion, amidst " troops of friends," who honored and loved 
him for what he was, and what he had c^one and suffered for his country. He died 
of a complaint of the heart, suddenly, at last, at the age of seventy-eight, and was 

" Borne to his grave 
With 'scutcheon and waving phimc," 

amidst the benisons and tears of a sincere circle of mourninir friends. 




ARTHUR MIDDLETON. 



ARTHUR MIDDLETON was born at " Middleton Place," a delightful seat on 
the banks of the River Ashley, in the year 1743. Born in the lap of wealth, his 
father was able to provide for the education of Arthur in the most munificent man- 
ner. At the age of twelve he was sent to the celebrated school at Hackney, near 
London, from which place he went to Westminster, and at the age of nineteen he 
entered the university at Cambridge, from which he was graduated, in 1764, an 
accomplished scholar. He had resisted all the seductions of his collegiate course, 
and came from the dreadful moral contaminations of a college life unsmooched and 
pure as he had entered. 

After travelling extensively through Europe and cultivating his taste for the fine 
arts, particularly in music and painting, he returned to South Carolina and married 
the beautiful daughter of Walter Izard, Esq., with whom he re-traversed Europe, 
and then returned to settle in the shades of his own delightful home on the banks of 
the Ashley. 

This was in 1773. The political caldron was even now seething with its op- 
posing contents — loyalty claiming the right for the king's oppression, and repub- 
licanism contending for individual rights against kingly usurpation. Mr. Middleton 



440 ARTHUR MIDDLETON 

and his father were deejoly interested in the discussion and its result. Their im- 
mense wealth lay in a portion of the country most likely to be traversed by the iron 
heel of war, provided the discussion led to an outbreak. But, careless of personal 
consequences, he put his name proudly, and without hesitation, to that noble declara- 
tion which consecrated life, honor, and fortune to liberty, and flung defiance into the 
teeth of the oppressor, 

lie was elected to the Congress to be held in Philadelphia, in 1776, having pre- 
viously served in a variety of ways the republican cause. He remained in Congress 
until the close of 1777, and acquired a character for great clearness of intellect, pure 
patriotism, and unfaltering devotion to +he holy cause in which he and his compeers 
liad embarked. 

In the spring of 1778, South Carolina remodelled, in some essential points, her 
constitution ; the occasion of which was the manifestation of patriotism as rare as 
it was pure. The amendment passed the assembly by a handsome majority. John 
Ruf,/ed<>'e, then occupying the gubernatorial chair, could not conscientiously give it his 
signature. But as it was the expressed will of the majority, he resigned, that the bill 
might not suflfer defeat by his single act. On the balloting of the house being de- 
clared, it was found that Mr. Middleton was unanimously elected. Possessing the 
same scruples with Rutledge, he would not accept the office, and a second election 
placed Mr. Loundes in the chair of state, who gave his assent to the bill. 

When, in 1779, South Carolina became the theatre of war, Mr. Middleton's es- 
tates became the prey of the invaders. His buildings were spared, but every thing 
movable and of any value was carried away or destroyed. His valuable library and 
elegant paintings were remorselessly appropriated by the Vandals, who disgraced the 
Christian government, under whose protection they violated every principle of justice, 
and set at nought every tie of humanity and brotherhood. Fortunately he and his 
family escaped the ruthless hands of the marauders. 

During the investment of Charleston, Mr. Middleton was there, and rendered very 
essential aid in its defence. On its surrender, he was carried to St. Augustine, a pris- 
oner of war. On being exchanged, in 1781, he was immediately appointed a dele- 
gate to Congress, and again he was elected to the same honorable post in 1782. He 
then returned to his beloved home, and on the establishment of peace declined to be 
elected to Congress any more, preferring to be with his family, from which he had 
been so long separated. He consented to be elected, occasionally, to a seat in the 
legislature of his state, in which he rendered good aid to the cause '^f education and 
wise legislation among his fellow-citizens. In November of 1786, he imprudently 
ex])osed himself to the inclement weather usual at that season, tooK a severe cold, 
which resulted in an intermittent fever, terminating his valuable life on the 1st of 
January, 1787, being only forty-four years of age. 




WILLIAM WHITE, D. D. 



"TTT^ILLIAM WHITE, the late presiding Bishop of the American Protestant 
T T Episcopal' church, was born at Philadelphia, on the 24th of March, (O. S.,) 
1747, His father was a trustee of the then newly-endowed college of Philadelphia, 
and at a very eatly age William was transferred to the English school attached to 
the college, under the charge of Ebenezer Kinnersley, and at ten was placed in the 
Latin school, where he was fitted for college, which he entered at the age of fourteen. 
Even at this tender age young White had fixed on the clerical profession, his re- 
ligious turn of mind dating from his earliest recollection. " My earliest impressions 
of religion," he gratefully records, "were the fruit of faithful maternal instructions." 
About this time Whitefield visited the city, and his preaching seems to have made 
a deep impression on the mind of our young aspirant for holy orders. " His force 
of emphasis, and the melodies of his tones and cadences," thus the bishop writes of 
his early impressions of the great Methodist, " exceeded what I had ever heard from 
any other person." But born, baptized, and educated in the " Established church," 
he "could not reconcile to his mind the doings of Whitefield as a minister of that 
church." Having completed his academical course, he was graduated, in 1765, at 
the age of eighteen, and entered at once on the study of his elected profession. 



442 WILLIAM WHITE, D. D. 

Previous to the revolution, the Episcopal church in America was under the con- 
trol of the Bishop of London, and young men desirous of receiving orders were 
obliged to visit London for the imposition of the hands of the presbytery. Thither, 
then, proceeded young White, and received ordination, as deacon, in the Royal 
Chapel at Norwich, in 1770. He remained in England two years, pursuing his 
studies and improving his opportunities to examine the structure and forms of his 
church, and he returned to America, in 1772, fully confirmed in his opinion that his 
was the only true church. Having received priest's orders, on his return he was iu- 
vitetl to assume the charge of assistant minister in the parish of Christ's Church 
and St. Peter's. 

On the declaration of independence by the United States, he took the oath of 
allegiance, and was elected one of the chaplains to Congress, then holding its ses- 
sion at Yorktown, having been driven from Philadelphia by the British troops. 

At this time the Episcopal church in America was completely broken up, Mr. 
White being, in 1780, the only minister of that faith in the state of Pennsylvania. 
The rectorship of the parish of Christ's Church and St. Peter's having been vacated 
by the flight of its incumbent to England, Mri White was chosen to till the vacancy, 
and was duly installed in the same. In the spring of 1783, the university of Phila- 
delphia conferred on him the title of doctor of divinity, it being the first title of the 
kind conferred by the university. 

Dr. White now applied his energies to the more perfect organization of the 
Atnerican Episcopal church, a work to which he devoted himself with a zeal worthy 
its object. His labors were attended with success. Perhaps to no man does the 
church owe so much for its present prosperity as to this untiring advocate of its au- 
thority and forms, its doctrines and its sacraments. 

Having been chosen by the Pennsylvania convention as a candidate for the office 
of bishop, Dr. White, in company with Rev. Dr. Proovost, of New York, and Dr. 
Griffith, of Virginia, who had also been selected for the same office by conventions 
of their respective states, proceeded to London, and were duly consecrated at Lam- 
beth, on the 4th of February, 1787, by the Archbishops of York and Canterbury, 
and Bishops Moss and Hinchlitfe. 

Until his death, in 1837, Bishop White discharged the functions of his office with 
a zeal commending itself to the church and the world, and has deservedly earned the 
reputation of "the founder of Episcopacy in the United States," as well as that 
higher one — a great and good minister of the Lord Jesus. 




COMMODORE RICHARD DALE. 

RICHARD DALE was the eldest of five children, and was born in Virginia, on 
the 6th day of November, 1756. At the early age of twelve he was placed 
with his uncle, wh'o had command of a vessel in the Liverpool trade, thus gratifying 
his earliest predilection, which was for the sea. At nineteen he was made chief 
officer of a brig, in which he had considerable experience in the buffets of a sailor's 

life. 

When the war of the revolution commenced, young Dale forsook the merchant, 
service, and received, in 1776, the appointment of lieutenant in a war vessel fitted 
out by the House of Burgesses of Virginia, and stationed on the James River. 
Here he fell into the hands of the enemy, was carried to Norfolk, and deposited in 
the comfortable quarters of a prison ship. His confinement lasted several weekc, 
when he escaped, and soon after joined the navy as midshipman. He was put on 
board the brig Lexington, Captain John Barry. His connection with this vessel 
seems to have been a disastrous one. Twice he became a prisoner, and the last 
time he was taken to England and thrust into the "Mill Prison," a place whence 
many a poor fellow was borne forth only to his grave — a spot into which as much 
suffering and humiliation was crowded as the hold of a slave ship. Here, half fed 

23 



4:4:4: COMMODORE RICHARD DALE 

on the most vile provision?, thrust into a narrow hole with as many others as it could 
be made to contain, with the most noisome air, consorting with the vilest and most 
abandoned, did the gallant midshipman pine for months, when he and some of his 
shipmates made their escape. After great fatigue, and in a state bordering on star- 
vation, they reached London, and embarked on a packet vessel bound for Dunkirk, 
where they were immediately seized by a pressgang and returned to their old quar- 
ters in Mill Prison. Forty days in the " Black Hole," less food, and of a worse kind, 
were a part of the punishment inliicted for this attempt to escape. 

After a years incarceration, young Dale escaped by a bold and ingenious device. 
Having procured the uniform of an English officer, he walked out in broad day in 
the face and eyes of the sentinels, and proceeded directly to London. Here, by the 
most consummate address, he procured a passport and proceeded to France, where 
he sought out Commodore Paul Jones, and immediately entered his service on board 
the Bon Homme Richard, in the character of master's mate. In a short time Jones, 
discovering his character, made him his first lieutenant, and he took part in all the 
bloody frays and mad freaks of the "Bon Homme Richard" in that important and 
glorious cruise. 

After a voyage of extreme peril. Dale returned to America in the Ariel, in Feb- 
ruary, 178L In July he sailed in the Trumbull frigate, as lieutenant to Captain 
James Nicholson, and on the same day his ship was taken by a British frigate, and 
he again became a captive. He was put on shore at Long Island, and shortly after 
exchanged and set at liberty. The government having no further need of his services, 
he fitted out a large merchant ship, the " Queen of France," and after an unsuc- 
cessful cruise returned to the United States, in 1783. On the conclusion of peace, 
he embarked once more in the merchant service, which he followed until 1794, driv- 
ing a most lucrative trade to the East Indies. 

In 1794, Congress passed an act providing for a naval establishment, and Dale 
was selected as one of its six captains, and appointed to superintend the building 
of a large frigate at Norfolk. In 1798, when war was generally expected with 
P'rance, the government purchased several large merchant ships and fitted them np 
as ships of war, one of which, the Ganges, was intrusted to the command of Lieu- 
tenant Dale. In 1801, he was appointed to the command of the squadron of obser- 
vation designed for the Mediterranean, consisting of the frigates President, Philadel- 
phia, Essex, and the schooner Enterprise. Hoisting his broad pennant on board the 
President, he sailed for the coast of Tripoli, where he did good service in the pro- 
tection of the American commerce, and in overawing those lawless buccaneers who 
then infested the Mediteiranean. He returned with honor to his native shores in the 
summer of 1802. 

This was the last public service of Captain Dale, although he was offered the 
command of the squadron which sailed to the Mediterranean the following year. 
He now retired to Philadelphia, where he spent the remainder of his days in the 
'Mijoyment of 

" All that should accompany old an^e, 
As honor, love, obedience," 

and died on the 24th of February, 1826, in the seventieth year of his age. 




V^'/ 
^^."W 






HENRY LAURENS. 



ENRY LAURENS was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in the year 175o. 
His opportunities for early education were limited, and while yet young he 
entered the business of a merchant, for which he was particularly fitted by habits of 
great method and regularity. Prompt and energetic in whatever he undertook, 
punctual in all his engagements as well as active in the extreme, success seemed 
certain and wealth sure. 

In 1771, Mr. Laurens committed to the grave the mortal part of an amiable, 
intelligent, and beloved wife. In the heavy sorrow of his heart he gave up his 
business and sailed for Europe, to devote himself to, and find solace in, the edu- 
cation of his sons; one of whom. Colonel John Laurens, distinguished himself in 
the service of his country, and died on the battle field at the early age of twenty-six. 
While in England he took a prominent part in behalf of the colonists, and when 
it became apparent that a rupture was inevitable, he hastened back to devote him- 
self to the maintenance of the rights of his countrymen at whatever hazard. This 
exhibition of his patriotism secured for him the confidence of his fellow-citizens, 
who bestowed upon him the honors due to such high and unselfish patriotism. 

On the meeting of the Carolina Provincial Congress, Mr. Laurens was elected it? 



446 HENRY LAURENS. 

president. While in office he drew up a form of association, to be signed by who- 
ever was resolved to abide by the fortunes of their country, and which received a 
large number of the best names in the colony, denouncing the arbitrary measures 
of Great Britain, and pledging themselves to use every exertion to prevent their 
execution. 

In 1776, South Carolina adopted its first constitution, and Mr. Laurens was chosen 
the first delegate from that state to the general Congress, then held at Philadelphia. 
On the retirement of Hancock from the presidency of that illustrious assembly, he 
was called to take his place, in 1777, which office he held until 1779. 

The year following Mr. Laurens went to Holland, as commissioner to negotiate a 
loan with that city and a treaty of commerce with the Netherlands. On his voyage 
out he was captured by a British frigate. Perceiving his fate, be threw his papers 
overboard ; but they were discovered and picked up by the boats of the frigate. He 
was taken t,o England, and on examination was deemed to be guilty of high treason, 
and sent to the Tower of London, on the 6th of October. His confinement was 
very rigid, f.nd his treatment unnecessarily severe. He was permitted to see no one ; 
paper and ink were denied him, and he suffered from close confinement and bad air. 
His enemies dared not destroy him, for fear of retaliation ; and they were afraid to 
set him at liberty, lest he should do them great injury. At length his sufferings ex- 
citing the highest sympathy for himself and indignation for his keepers, and his health 
suffering from confinement, the ministry thought it prudent to consent to his release. 

While in the Tower, no pains were spared to corrupt the brave Carolinian; but he 
was immaculate, and their words of threat and promise fell alike on his ear "as the 
idle wind." His son, now high in the confidence of Congress, was in Paris on a 
secret mission. It was intimated to the father that his eiforts to induce the son to 
withdraw from France might procure his own release. " Such is the filial regard of 
my son," was the reply of this stout-hearted patriot, "that I know he would cheer- 
fully lay down his life for me ; but no considerations could induce him to relinquish 
his honor, even were it possible under any circumstances to prevail upon me to make 
the improper request." 

As soon as his release was known at home, he was appointed a commissioner, 
together with Franklin, Jay, and Adams, to negotiate the terms of peace between 
Great Britain and America. On the ratification of peace he returned to South 
Carolina, where, declining all public office, he spent the remainder of his days in 
delightful retirement in the bosom of his family. He expired on the Sth of Decem- 
ber, 1792, aged sixty-nine. 

His body was burned on the third day from his decease by his son ; this being the 
sole condition in his father's will, on which he should inherit his wealth, amounting 
to sixty thousand pounds sterling. 




MRS. HAURIET .N^EWELL. 



IN these halcyon days of locomotion, when it requires but a little more than a 
week to cross the broad Atlantic, and a voyage to India and back is made with 
far more ease than the Mayflower's first passage to the shores of the new world, we 
can have little idea of the terrors which must beset the heart of the young mission- 
ary wife about to sail for the unknown and unfriendly climes, where 

^'Tlie savage, in his blindness, 

Bows down to wood and stone." 

Calcutta is nearer now than Cuba was before steam annihilated all distances and 
shrank the geography of the earth into comparative compactness of neighborhood. 
But when Miss Atwood, then a maiden of eighteen, who had been delicately reared 
and cared for, was asked if she would risk the dangers of a voyage to Asia, and 
assume the responsibilities, and undergo the hardships, of a missionary life in those 
inhospitable and unwholesome climes, the question was well calculated to appall a 
stouter heart than hers; and it must have required some higher sentiment than mere 
enthusiasm to bid her yield to the persuasion. Self-deceived she might have been 
with regard to her duty; but her convicliotis were certain, and no one can withhold 



448 MRS. HARRIET NEWELL. 

liiri admiration at the lofty heroism which led her to sacrifice all her early ties, an^ 
relinquish all the comforts of her civilized and Christian home, for the certain terrors 
and hardships of the savage wilds, which, henceforward, were to be her home. 

Miss Harriet Atwood was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, October 10, 1793. 
There was nothing in her childhood to distinguish her from the playmates with 
whom she associated. She was cheerful, and had an early taste for reading; and if 
we may judge from the earlier extracts of her writings, the books she perused were 
not of the most solid character, but consisted of that lighter kind calculated to foster 
a morbid sensibility, not to nourish and develop the nobler traits of human nature. 

While she was yet young. Miss Atwood was sent to the academy at Bradford, 
Massachusetts, then, as now, noted for its religious, as well as its literary, character. 
Her early life had been marked by occasional religious impressions ; but in 1806, she, 
with several others of her schoolmates, became permanently impressed with the ne- 
cessity of a religious life, and was led to devote herself to Christian services. From 
this period an entire change took place in her taste and habits. She abandoned her 
former companions and pursuits, and associated only with those of a religious tiu-n 
of mind like herself. Her reading was also confined to books of a religious charac- 
ter ; and in the summer of 1809, while she was not quite sixteen, she made a pro- 
fession of religion, and joined the church. From numerous extracts from her diary, 
which she kept with great care, and from the many letters which she wrote to her 
friends, we must judge that she was most thoroughly imbued with a deep and vital 
piety. 

It was in the winter of 1811 that she first met Mr. Newell, her future husband, 
who had consecrated himself to the work of a missionary. A mutual interest was 
awakened, and as he discovered in her those peculiar traits of character so requisite 
in the \vife of a missionary, he asked her to share his lot, and become a co-worker in 
his benevolent purpose. To a young girl, whose family ties were exceedingly dear, 
and whose circle of friends was extensive, it was a question difficult to decide. But 
after the most solemn and prayerful consideration, and having gained the consent of 
her mother, — her only remaining parent, — she consented, and gave him her hand in 
February, 1812, and sailed with her husband and several other missionaries, among 
whom were Mr. and Mrs. Judson, from Salem, Massachusetts, the same month. 

On account of the war then waging between England and the United States, they 
were not permitted to remain in India, — whither they arrived after a quite prosper- 
ous voyage, — and they embarked at Calcutta for the Isle of France, where, after a 
passage of extreme peril, they arrived the last of the summer. Shortly after their 
arrival, Mrs. Newell became the mother of a daughter, which died on the fifth day 
from its birth. 

Mrs. Newell siu-vived the babe but a few months, when she fell a victim to con- 
sumption, a disease of which her father and several of her relatives had previously 
died. Not yet twenty, in the very outset of her career, she closed her eyes on earth, 
on the 30th of November, 1812, full of joyful hope and trust in heaven. 




GENEUAL BENJAMIN PIERCE. 



BENJAMIN PIERCE, the father of the present president of the United States, 
was born in Chehnsford, Massachusetts, on the 25th of December, 1757. His 
'"ather dying when he was six years old, he was pnt under the care of his uncle, Rob- 
ert Pierce, then also residing at Chelmsford. His uncle was a farmer, and young 
Pierce labored on the farm until he was eighteen years old, having no other means 
of obtaining an education than that afforded by a few weeks' annual attendance at 
the village school. But possessing a quick intelligence, and a strong deske to 
strengthen and assist it with knowledge, he made a good degree of proficiency, and 
acquired a substantial English education. Hon. Isaac Hill, late governor of New 
Hampshire, used to say of the productions of his pen, " He never put upon paper a 
sentence that was unfit for the public eye." 

\Yhen the news of the battle of Lexington spread through the country, it found 
young Pierce following the plough on the farm of his uncle. With the consent of 
his uncle he at once equipped himself and started for the scene of action, and fol- 
lowed the retreating " Britishers " as far as Cambridge, where he found the nucleus 
of that army which was destined to deliver the western hemisuhere from its servitude 



450 GENERAL BENJAMIN PIERCE. 

to the old world. He immediately enlisted as a private in the company of Captain 
Ford, which was entirely composed of " Chelmsford boys," and numbered, including 
officers, sixty muskets. 

It was not long before these raw recruits had a taste of the reality of war. They 
were in the thickest of the fight of that memorable day which so soon followed, the 
17th of June, 1775. One fifth of that company stained the soil of Bunker Iliil with 
their blood, yet these men of true metal blenched not in the fiery trial. Early in the 
action Pierce and several of his comrades dragged a neglected cannon up to the bat- 
tle field, which did gi*eat execution and assisted not a little in accomplishing the 
glorious results of the day. 

Upon the retreat of the Americans from Bunker Hill, many of the company of 
Avhich Pierce was a" member returned to their homes. He, however, concluded to 
remain with the pati'iots, and fought in the continental army throughout the whole 
war, engaged in several minor affairs, rendering gallant service at the battles which 
immediately preceded the surrender of Burgoyne at Stillwater, and sharing the hard- 
ships and the horrors of the winter of 1780 at Valley Forge. For his meritorious conduct 
at Bemis' Heights he was rewarded with an ensign's commission ; and for subsequent 
service during the war he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. At one time he 
was a prisoner of war in New York city, and while there was most grossly insulted 
by a British officer Avithout the slightest cause. After the evacuation of New York 
by the British army he met that officer under circumstances in which he could not 
avoid a collision. Swords were drawn and mutual defiance hurled, and Pierce soon 
found that it was to be a matter of life and death. "With perfect coolness he 
pressed upon his antagonist, and, after a brief struggle, ran his sword through the 
body of the officer. 

In 1784, when the army was disbanded, Lieutenant Pierce returned once more to 
Chelmsford, having been absent nine years. Like hundreds of his poor fellow-sol- 
diers, he found himself reduced to utter poverty through the depreciation of the cur- 
rency. Soon after this lie was employed to survey certain lands in the valley of the 
Contoocook, in New Hampshire, and, having selected a spot in Hillsboro' county, he 
immediately commenced preparing for himself a future home by clearing away the 
heavy forest and building with his own hands a rude hut of logs. Here he lived 
alone for more than a year, cooking his own victuals, washing his own linen, and 
sleeping upon a hard bed of his own construction, with only a single blanket for 
his covering. But one who had endured the horrors of the encampment of Valley 
Forge did not shrink from these minor hardships, and his time passed cheerfully and 
comfortably. 

It was in this year, 1786, that Governor Sullivan promoted Pierce to the rank of 
major in a brigade raised in the county in which he resided. In 1787, he married the 
daughter of Isaac Andrews, of Hillsboro', who died in a little more than a year after, 
leaving an infant daughter. In 1789, he married again, and lived with his wife nearly 
a half century, rearing a numerous family. For thirteen years he represented the 
town of Hillsboro' in the general court of New Hampshire, served two terms as gov- 
ernor of the state, and, in 1832, was one of the presidential electors. He rose by 
regular gradation in the state militia until, in 1805, he was commissioned as general 
of brigade by Governor Langdon. His death occurred on the 1st of April, 1839, at 
the age of eighty-one. 




HORATIO GATES. 



GENERAL HORATIO GATES was bom in England, in the year 1728. Of 
his boyhood we know nothing, and we find him at an early age in the British 
army. Here his diligence and close attention to the duties of his profession attracted 
the attention of the superior officers, and by their recommendation he received, at 
the hand of his king, a major's commission and emoluments. General Moncton 
appointed young Gates one of his aids, with whom he saw considerable service, and 
was with him at the capture of Martinico. 

After the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle he was transferred to America, and was with 
Cornwallis when he landed at Halifax. He was serving in the army of Braddock, 
when that general suflfered defeat, in 1755, and in the action received a severe wound 
through the body. At the conclusion of the war, he retired into Virginia, where he 
purchased a farm, on which he lived twenty years, giving his attention to agricul- 
ture, and studying the institutions of the country of his adoption, and in whose 
struggle for liberty he most heartily sympathized. 

When, in 1775, the country flew to arms to maintain the rights they had so long 
asserted and asked for in vain, Gates was one of the foremost in the desperate and 
uncertain movement. At the recommendation of Washington, Congress appointed 

24 



452 



H O R A T I O G A T E S . 



him adjutant general in the continental army, with the rank of brigadier general. 
When Washington went to take the command of the army in Boston, Genera] 
Gates accompanied him, and so won upon the favor of that wary commander, as to 
be placed at the head of the northern army, destined to act against Canada. His 
action not fulfilling the expectations he had created, he was superseded by Schuyler 
in the following year. Under the skilful management of this prudent and efficient 
soldier, the condition of the army, which had become most deplorable, rapidly im- 
proved, and was enabled to keep in check the proud army of Burgoyne. 

But in these troublous times no character was above suspicion, and each general 
officer was held responsible for every misfortune which befell that portion of the army 
\vhich was under his command. In August, Gates was restored to his command, 
and the brave Schuyler displaced. This took place just before the glorious victory 
of Saratoga. Every thing had been prepared by Schuyler and his brave officers, 
and Gates had only to step in and gather the laurels. Although there was scarcely 
an officer who fought by his side to whom the country was not more indebted for 
this great result, yet in the intoxication of their joy the people gave him all the praise. 
Congress voted him a gold medal and their thanks. History, however, has set this 
matter right before the world, and done full justice to the much injured Schuyler. 
Whatever may have been the bravery or generalship of Gates, the glory of this 
crowning victory of the revolution, which broke the British power forever in our 
beloved country, belongs to the discreet and untiring efforts of the commissary 
general. 

As a conquerer, no man ever bore himself with more gallantry and delicacy to 
a defeated enemy than did General Gates. He withdrew his army from witnessing 
the humiliation of the English, and appointed a small guard of officers to receive 
the sword of the boastful Burgoyne, and the grounded arms of his soldiers. 

Sent to reenforce the army of the south. Gates suffered defeat in battle with the 
English under Comwallis, and was superseded by General Greene, but was restored 
to his command in 1782. 

The surrender of Yorktown and the humiliation of Cornwallis speedily followed, 
and in due time peace was restored. Then Gates retired once more to the quiet of 
his farm, in Virginia. In 1790, having emancipated his slaves, and provided for the 
helpless among them, he removed to the city of New York, where he was presented 
with the freedom of the city. Here he lived in much honor until his death, which 
occurred on the 10th of April, 1806, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. 




Vv 



MRS. MERCY AYARREN. 



IT is a pleasant sight to behold a mind capable of treading the flowery paths of 
literature amidst the severer storms of life, and drawing consolation and beautiful 
hope therefrom, when clouds gather overhead and the war of the elements echoes 
round about. One w^ould think that in the days of the re\'olution, while such awful 
games were playing and such tremendous stakes were pending, that little time could 
be had, and less inclination felt, for the lighter pursuits of poetry and belles lettres 
Yet there were a few who lived constantly amidst the tragic scenes of those days of 
freedom's strife, who, with hearts in their bosoms full to overflowing with anxiety 
fear, and care, neglected not the Muses, but found comfort and strength in their* so- 
ciety, as the Christian derives inspu'ation from prayer and meditation. 

Of this class was the subject of this notice. Living in the midst of the strife, and 
her heart filled with fears and anxieties for her husband and children and many 
friends, she yet found time to cultivate and exercise her refined tastes to an extent 
entirely surprising. Miss Mercy Otis was the daughter of Colonel James Otis, and 
was born in Barnstable, on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in 1728. In those days of the 
country's weakness schools were rare indeed ; and such as could be found were fai 



454 MRS. MERCY WARREN. 

inferior to such as the children of the present generation are permitted to attend. 
Miss Otis's early education was such as her mother could give her amidst the cares 
of a numerous household and the anxieties which filled every family. Her later 
education was superintended by the minister of the parish, Rev. Mr. Russell. He 
found her possessed of a brilliant genius, strengthened by unusual gravity and serious- 
ness of deportment. He wisely seconded the efforts of the mother, and moulded her 
peculiarly plastic mind into the images of greatness and purity. He encouraged the 
genius he perceived budding in her young mind, and trained it into a wholesome and 
healthful development. 

Miss Otis was also very fortunate in finding a fostering hand in her nearest friend. 
About 1754, she gave her hand and heart to Mr. James Warren, a young and respect- 
able merchant of Plymouth. He encouraged her tastes and strengthened her predi- 
lections. Her poetic productions at that time were quite respectable, and manifested 
considerable genius. As the discussion of the great revolutionaiy questions waxed 
warm, she found new and abundant subjects for her pen. She took a very decided 
part with the patriots, and rendered her pen subservient to their cause. Her satire 
was keen and biting ; and woe to the luckless wight who fell beneath its edge ! 

During the war of 1775, Mrs. Warren was obliged to change her residence often. 
But her doors were ever open to her friends and the friends of the American cause, 
and a warm and ready hospitality gTceted those who entered within her portals. The 
prime spirits of the revolution were her intimate friends, and often consulted her upon 
the most important matters. She was in constant correspondence with the Adamses, 
Hancock, Jefferson, Dickinson, and several generals of the continental army. Her 
opinions were treated by these gallant men with gi-eat consideration, and her advice 
often followed with the best results. 

To alleviate the anxious hours which hung around those trying scenes, Mrs. War- 
ren often resorted to her pen, and some of her finest productions were written pend- 
ing some immediate danger, or when the war of the angry elements were loudest. 
She wrote two tragedies, " The Sack of Rome " and " The Ladies of Castile," be- 
sides several other poems, merely to drive out the alarms which constantly filled her 
sensitive breast. But her fears were all for her country and her friends. In danger 
her coolness and courage were conspicuous, and the description she has given of the 
" courage of virtue " is eminently applicable to her : — 

" A soul, inspired by freedom's genial warmth, 
Expands, grows firm, and, by resistance, strong ; 
The most successful prince that offers life, 
And bids me live upon ignoble terms, 
Shall learn from me that virtue seldom fears. 
Death kindly opes a thousand friendly gates, 
And freedom waits to guard her votaries through." 

She died October 19, 1814, in the eighty-seventh year of her age. 




I 



HON. TIMOTHY FARRAR. 

FROM the early settlement of the country to the present time, the name of Far- 
rar has occupied an honorable place in its history. Nicholas Farrar was a mem- 
ber both of the East and West India Company. Early in the seventeenth century 
he became a member of the Virginia Company, and several of his family came to 
this country and settled as early as 1620, from whom have sprung the numerous 
branches which have spread themselves abroad and occupied nearly every section of 
the country. 

The following curious account of the genealogy of the Farrar family we extract 
from the Genealogical Register, (a work, by the way, which ought to be in every 
household,) which is published under the direction of the " New England" Historic- 
Genealogical Society : " — 

" The name of Farrar is said to have been derived from the Latin and French word 
signifying iron, and was, dovibtless, first used to designate a locality where that metal 
was found. As a family name, it was first known in England from Gualkeline, or 
Walkeline de Ferrariis, a Norman of distinction, attached to William, Duke of Nor- 
mandy, before the invasion of 1066. From him all of the name in England and 



456 HON. TIMOTHY FARRAR. 

America have descended, Henry de Ferrars, his son, is on the roll of Battle Abbey, 
(a list of the principal commanders and companions in arms of WiUiam the Con- 
queror,) and was the first of the family who settled in England, which he did imme- 
diately after the conquest. When the general survey of the realm, recorded in 
Domesday Book, was made by order of King William I. in the fourteenth year of 
his reign, this Henry de Ferrars was one of the commissioners appointed for that 
great service." 

TiiNioTHY Farrar, thc suhjcct of this memoir, was the fourth and youngest son of 
Deacon Samuel Farrar, and was born in Lincoln, Massachusetts, on the 28th of June, 
1747. Being fond of learning, it was decided to furnish liim with the means of 
education, and he was accordingly fitted to enter Harvard University, Cambricl 
from which institution he was graduated in 1767. He chose the profession of tht 
law, and, having passed the requisite clerkship, he opened an office at New Ipswich, 
New Hampshire, and commenced ] ractice. His business soon increased, and sv li 
was his fidelity to the duties of his profession that he rose to a high legal eminence 
in his adopted state. In 1779, he married Anna Bancroft, with whom he lived until 
1817, a period of nearly forty years. 

In 1775, Mr. Farrar received the appointment of second justice of the county court. 
At this period, just as hostilities between the colonies and the parent country were 
commencing, that office was a high and important one, and required a man of not 
only high legal attainments, but one possessed of gi'eat moral force and probity. 
Such a one was the subject of this memoir. He entered heart and soul into tht; 
cause of the revolutionists, and ever remained a stanch republican. 

From this office Justice Farrar passed through nearly every judicial post, upward, 
in the courts of New Hampshire, until, in 1802, he was appointed chief justice of 
the supreme court of that state. This office he held until the approach of old age 
admonished him to retire, which he did with the same dignity with which he had 
presided over the courts for more than half a century. 

The judicial decisions of Chief Justice Farrar are remarkable for their lucidness 
and entire freedom from political or sectional prejudices, and do great credit to his 
memory as a jurist of high eminence. Having outlived all his classmates and con- 
temporaries, and having seen three generations come upon the stage of human action 
and pass away from all its busy scenes, at length, on the 21st of February, 1849, 
"like a shock of corn fully ripe," he fell also beneath the sure and all-gathering 
sickle of the great reaper, at the uncommon age of one hundred and one years. 

" Having survived all his college contemporaries, he was the last person living who 
had been gi-aduated under the royal government, and is now the eldest among the ten- 
ants of Mount Auburn. His grandfather died when he was thirteen years of age, and 
was born seventeen years after the immigration of his ancestor, so that the two lives 
will cover almost the entire history of New England from its settlement to the mid- 
dle of the nineteenth century. He was the last of the first five generations ; four 
more are now on the stage." 




GENERAL EDMUND PANNING. 



EDIMUND FANNING was the son of colonel Phineas Fanning, and was born 
on Long Island, in 1737. Of his childhood nothing more is known than that 
he was quite precocious. He entered Yale College, at New Haven, in 1753, and. 
while there, exhibited an uncommon devotion to his studies, graduating, in 1757. 
with the highest honors of his class. On leaving college, he devoted himself to the 
study of the law, and removed to Hillsboro', North Carolina, where he commenced 
the practice of his profession, in which he must have acquired great celebrity as a 
lawyer, as, in 1760, he received from his alma mater the degree of doctor of laws. 

At this time Mr. Fanning seems to have been very popular ; for, in 1763, he was 
chosen clerk of the superior court, and, the same year, was honored with a colonel's 
commission for the county of Orange. He was also elected representative from his 
county to the colonial legislature. Soon after this he acquired the ill will of his fel- 
low-citizens by the manifestation of strong tory attachments and by making the 
most exorbitant charges for legal services. He also took a conspicuous part in quell- 
ing a rebellion against the severe exactions of the government, and rendered himself 
exceedingly obnoxious by the bitterness of his prosecutions and the indefatigable zeal 



458 GENERAL EDMUND FANNING. 

he manifested in bringing the leaders of that movement to the scaffold. At length 
the public indignation manifested itself in acts of violence. His office and library 
were destroyed, and many indignities heaped upon his person. Feeling that his 
life was in danger, he fled to New York, in 1771, as secretary to governor Tryon. 
Afterwards he sought reparation from the legislature, for the losses he had sustained, 
by a petition through the governor. Such was the popular indignation that the legis- 
lature not only unanimously rejected the petition, but rebuked the governor for pre- 
senting it. 

On the opening of the revolutionary contest, as was to have been expected, Mr. 
Fanning attached himself to the British cause. Lord Howe, then in possession of 
the city of New York, in 1776, gave him a colonel's commission in '■'■The King's 
American Regiment of FoofJ^ He was engaged in several of the most important 
conflicts of the day, and fought with the loyalists through the whole war. After 
considerable service, in which he showed himself a brave and shrewd soldier, he 
received the appointment of surveyor general, which office he held until the close of 
the war. 

In the latter part of 1783, Fanning, in company with many other loyalists, fled to 
Nova Scotia, and became a permanent resident of that province. After holding sev- 
eral minor offices, he was made lieutenant governor of the province in 1786. In this 
high office he exhibited great capabilities, and commanded the approval of the min- 
istry who appointed him. 

In 1794, colonel Fanning was transferred to Prince Edward's Island, of which he 
was made governor. His administration of that office was judicious and vigorous. 
The indiscretions of his earlier life, while in North Carolina, were ever a subject of 
deep regret to him ; and, although of an ardent and hasty temper, he led a stainless 
and honorable life, and became an able jurist and legislator. He held the office of 
governor nearly twenty years. About the period of this last appointment, he mar- 
ried, and some of his descendants still dwell in that colony. He was commissioned 
a brigadier general in 1808; but performed, we believe, no service under that com- 
mission. 

In 1814-15, general Fanning went to England and took up his residence in the 
city of London. Here, respected by all who knew him, he passed the remainder of 
his life. He retired from active life and gave himself up to those pursuits which 
an elegant taste, high literary acquisitions, and large wealth might be supposed 
to indicate. Here he lived in the enjoyment of a reputation without reproach, sur- 
rounded by many friends, and in possession of the blessings belonging to a ripe old 
age, until he reached his eighty-second year. He died in London in 1818. 




CHARLES TOWNSHEND. 



PERHAPS of all the proximate causes of the revolution which ijrrci'ded our 
declaration of independence, none had a more powerful influence in precipitating 
results than that of the " Stamp Act." Certainly no act of the British Parliament 
was more odious to the American colonists. 

This " fire brand of hell " was hatched in the fertile brain of Lord George Gren- 
ville, then chancellor of the exchequer of Great Britain, and was by him introduced 
before the House of Commons, although it was not acted on until the following year. 
Meanwhile Grenville had resigned his ollice. It was after this that he was the sub- 
ject of a jeu d^esprit, which fastened upon him the sobriquet of " The Gentle Shep- 
herd." In the course of a debate on the subject of taxation, in 1762, Mr. Grenville 
contended that the money was wanted, that government did not know where to lay. 
another tax ; and, addressing Mr. Pitt, he said, " Why iloes lie not tell us where we 
can levy another tax?" repeating, with emphasis, "Let him tell me where — only 
tell me where! " Pitt, though not much given to joking, hummed in the words of a 
popular song, " Gentle shepherd, tell me where ! " The house burst into a roar of 
laughter, and christened George Grenville T'te Gentle Shepherd. 

25 



460 CHARLES TOWNSHEND 

Lord Grenville was !<uccceded by Charles Townshend, who, in February, 1765, 
bioui^ht the bill directly before the House of Commons, and urged its passage with 
all the eloquence of his powerful mind. Next to Pitt, Townshend was allowed on 
all hands to be the most eloquent man in Parliament; and the zeal with which he 
strove to carry this bill was only a consistent element in his fierce opposition to the 
liberty of the colonists, and which he seems to have transmitted to Lord North, who 
succeeded him in office, and who so untiringly pursued the policy of George III., of 
persecuting the struggling colonies. He concluded his lengthy and eloquent speech 
in the manner following : — 

" And now will these Americans, children planted by our care, nourished up by 
our indulgence until they are grown to a degree of strength and opulence, and pro- 
tected by our arms, will they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve vis from the 
heavy weight of that burden which we lie under ? " 

When Townshend had taken his seat, Colonel Isaac Barre, who was one of the 
warmest and most uncompromising friends of American liberty, rose in his place, 
and echoing the last words of the chancellor, gave utterance to the most withering 
rebukes upon the bill and its advocates, the crown and its ministry, for the unholy 
crusade which was being carried on against those men who only claimed the full 
privileges of British subjects. " They planted by your care ? " were his bold words. 
" No ! your oppression planted them in America. They fled from your tyranny to a 
then uncultivated and inhospitable country, where they exposed themselves to almost 
all the hardships to which human nature is liable, and, among others, to the cruelties 
of a savage foe, the most subtle, and I will take upon me to say, the most formidable 
of any people upon the face of God's earth ; yet, actuated by principles of true Eng- 
lish liberty, they met all hardships with pleasure, compared with those they suffered 
in their own country,, from the hands of those who should have been their friends. 
They nourished vp by your indulgence I They grew by your neg-lect of them. As 
soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending persons to 
rule them in one department and another, who were, perhaps, the deputies of deputies 
to some members of this house, sent to spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their 
actions, and to prey upon them — men whose behavior on many occasions has caused 
the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them — men promoted to the high- 
est seats of justice ; some who, to my knowledge, were glad, by going to a foreign 
country, to escape being brought to the bar of public justice in their own. They pro- 
tected by your arms ! They have nobly taken up arms in your defence; have exerted 
a valor, amid their constant and laborious industry, for the defence of a country 
whose frontier was drenched in blood, while its interior parts yielded all its little 
savings to your emoluments. And believe me — remember I this day told you so — 
that same spirit of freedom which actuated that people at first will accompany them 
still; but prudence forbids me to explain myself further. God knows I do not at 
this time speak from motives of party heat; what I defiver are the genuine senti- 
ments of my heart. However superior to me, in general knowledge and experience, 
the respectable body of this house may be, I claim to know more of America than 
most of you, having seen and been conversant in that country. The people, I believe, 
are as truly loyal as any subjects the king has ; but they are a people jealous of their 
liberties, and who will vindicate them to the last drop of their blood if they should 
ever be violated." 




MRS. SARAH BACHE. 



^ ARAH, the only daughter of the celebrated Benjamin Franklin, was born in the 
O city of Philadelphia in September, 1744. Nothing is now known of the child- 
hood of this interesting woman ; but, judging from her subsequent life and the prac- 
tical character of her father, we may safely infer that it was a common-sense and 
practical course of training to which she was subjected, while her mind was well 
stored with the solid elements of literature. 

In 1767, Miss Franklin gave her hand to Richard Bache, a merchant of Philadel- 
phia, of some standing and considerable wealth. Every one is acquainted with the 
conspicuous part which Dr. Franklin took in those measures which preceded the rev- 
olution ; and the conduct of Mrs. Bache, during the whole course of that contest, 
shows that her mind and heart were faithfully imbued with the patriotic spirit which 
governed her father and those noble men who were his immediate associates in the 
glorious work to which they so unselfishly devoted themselves. 

The winter of 1780 was the severest which had been known since the country was 
fettled. The army was early shut up in its uncomfortable quarters, and the soldiers 
were doomed to the bitterest sufferings. Barefoot and half clad, their misery excited 



462 MRS. SARAH B AC HE 

the sympathy of tlie whole country. Robert Morris and other rich patriots gave mu- 
nificently, both in gold and provisions. The ladies, every where, took up the matter, 
and sent to the frostbitten army large supplies of clothing. In this Samaritan labor 
Mrs. Bache took a very active part. Her efforts were successful, and she enlisted all 
classes of society in her benevolent purposes, " from Phillis, the colored woman, 
with her huml^le seven shillings and sixpence, to the marchioness de Lafayette, who 
contributed one hundred guineas in specie, and the countess de Luzerne, who gave 
six thousand dollars in continental paper. Those who had no money to contribute 
gave the service of then- hands in plying the needle, and in almost every house the 
good work went on. It was charity in its genuine form and from its purest source 
— the voluntary outpourings from the heart. It was not stimulated by the excite- 
ments of our day — neither fancy fairs nor bazaars ; but the American women met, 
and, seeing the necessity that asked interposition, relieved it. They solicited money 
and other contributions directly and for a precise and avowed object. They labored 
with their needles, and sacrificed their trinkets and jewelry." 

During these preparations the marquis de Chastellux visited Philadelphia. He 
thus describes his visit to Mrs. Bache : " If there are any ladies in Europe who need 
a model of attachment to domestic duties and love for their country, Mrs. Bache may 
be pointed out to them as such. Simple in her manners, like her respectable father, 
she possesses his benevolence. She conducted us into a room filled with work lately 
finished by the ladies of Philadelphia. This work consisted neither of embroidered 
tambour waistcoats, nor network edgings, nor of gold and silver brocade — it was a 
quantity of shirts for the soldiers of Pennsylvania. The ladies bought the linen fiom 
their own private purses, and took a pleasure in cutting them out and sewing them 
themselves. On each shirt was the name of the married or unmarried lady who 
made it, and they amounted to twenty-two hundred." Thus were the hearts of the 
suffering army made glad, and many a poor soldier kept from death, by the exceeding 
kindness of this worthy daughter of the gi-eat philosopher and her noble sister patriots. 

On several other occasions the active benevolence of Mrs. Bache was called into 
exercise. Her hands administered to the wants of the suffering soldiery. She dressed 
their wounds, administered their medicines, and procured, at her own expense, cordials 
and luxuries which were needed, and which they were unable to procure for them- 
selves. She died in 1808, at the age of sixty-four years. 




ELBRIDGE GERRY. 



ELBRIDGE GERRY was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts, on the 17th of 
July, 1744. Nothing is now known of the early life of this distinguished man. 
We find him a member of Harvard University at the early age of fourteen, from 
which institution he was graduated in 1762. He had chosen the medical profession, 
but his father was desirous that he should assist him in his mercantile business ; and 
so he became a partner with his father, and for many years was a successful mer- 
chant in his native town. 

In 1772, Mr. Gerry was elected to the general court of the province of Massachu- 
setts, Aheady this body had taken strong ground against the measures of the 
crown, and Mr. Gerry fully sustained the doings of the patriots. He was a member 
of the general co\u-t for the two following years. In 1773, Samuel Adams intro- 
duced his celebrated motion for the appointment of a " standing committee of cor- 
respondence and inquiry." His name was placed on this committee, although he 
was one of the youngest members of the house ; and he became one of its most active 
and influential members. The same year, Mr. Adams laid before the house the for- 
eign correspondence of Governor Hutchinson. This was like throwing a firebrand 



464 ELBrxIDGEGERRY. 

into a magazine, and roused the indignation of the citizens of Massachusetts to the 
highest pitch. Mr. Gerry was among the foremost to denounce the treason of the 
governor, and greatly distinguished himself in the efforts he made to forward the 
energetic resolutions ])assed by the patriotic body of which he was a member with 
respect to the tea trade, the port bill, and non-intercourse. 

Mr. Gerry was elected a member of the provincial congress of Massachusetts, which 
met and organized in Salem in October, 1774, and then adjourned to Concord. In 
this body, so full of activity, he was a prominent and efficient member, as he was 
also of the same body which was reassembled in February, 1775, at Cambridge. The 
measures of this body are too well known to need to be recorded here, and in them 
all he was a most distinguished actor. When the British troops marched on Con- 
cord for the piirpose of breaking up the congress and arresting some of its most influ- 
ential members to be sent to England for trial, Mr. Gerry barely escaped from the 
house where he lodged, taking his clothing in his hand. Tht^y succeeded in breaking 
up the congress; but when they were driven back to Boston, that body reassembled 
and took the most energetic measures. Blood had been spilt ; and the country in 
all its length and breadth had been roused, while the sturdy yeomen were flocking to 
Cambridge to join that glorious army of freedom whose nucleus was fast increasing 
on that classic ground. 

Into all the measures of the congress assembled at Cambridge Mr. Gerry threw 
himself with all the energy of his enthusiastic nature, and was one of the foremost 
of that " rebel crew " who cast defiance into the teeth of the British ministry. 

When the continental congress was called at Philadelphia, Mr. Gerry was one of 
its members, and took his seat in that memorable body on the 9th of February, 1776. 
Here again he took a conspicuous part in the doings of that patriotic body, of which 
he remained a member until 1785. His name makes one of the glorious band who 
signed the Declaration of Independence. He was also a member of that convention 
which framed the constitution. He did not like the constitution, and was one of the 
large minority who voted in the Massachusetts convention — of which he was also a 
member — not to accept it. But it was accepted, although only by a majority of 
nineteen. Mr. Gerry was too much of a patriot to quarrel with it, but used his 
best influence in its support; "conceiving," as he said, "that the salvation of the 
country depended on its being carried heartily into effect, now that it has become the 
law of the land," 

Mr. Gerry was chosen a member of the first congress under the new constitution ; 
and, after four years' service, he retired to his family seat in Cambridge. In 1797, 
he, in company with Marshall and Pinckney, was sent to Paris as envoy to bring 
about an adjudication of the difficulties which had sprving up between France and 
the United States. Having fully succeeded in the purposes of his mission, he 
returned to this country in October, 1798, and immediately became the candidate of 
the democratic party for governor, and at length, in 1805, was elected ; as also again 
in 1810. In 1812, he was elected vice president of the United States, with Mr. 
Madison as president, and was inaugurated on the 4th of March, 1813. But he did 
not long occupy this exalted station, for, on the 23d of November, 1814, he suddenly 
died, in the midst of his duties at the city of Washington, in the seventy-first year 
of his age. 




ELIAS BOUDINOT. 



ELIAS BOUDINOT was born in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the 
year 1740. He was a direct descendant from the Huguenots ; his great-grand- 
father being one of that persecuted sect, who, in the revocation of the edict of Nante?, 
were obliged to flee from France. Of his early life nothing is now preserved except 
that he was of a sedate and studious turn of mind, and took readily to learning. 
He received a good academic education, and was graduated, we believe, from the 
college in New Jersey. On leaving college he entered the office of the celebrated 
Richard Stockton, and devoted several years to the study of law and classical lit- 
erature. 

On receiving his license to practice law in the various courts, he removed to New 
Jersey, and entered at once into the routine of a lawyer's life. His rise to distinction 
was steady, and he early acquired an enviable reputation as a jurist and barrister. 
About the same time he married the sister of Mr. Stockton, with whom he lived until 
1808, when she died, leaving one daughter. 

At the time of JVIr. Boudinot's opening his office, the treatment of the colonies by 
the British government had already become a question for much angry discussion. 

26 



468 E L I A S B U D I N T 

At once, and with all his heart, he assumed the American side of the question, and 
joined in all the measures of the colonists preceding the war of 1775. In 1777, he 
was appointed by congress commissary general of prisoners, a duty he most faithfully 
and successfully discharged. In the same year he was elected a member of congress, 
and retained his seat during the whole term of the war. In November, 1782, he 
was elected president of congress, and in that high office put his signature to the 
treaty of peace which was entered into between the two belligerent countries. 

On the establishment of peace he returned once more to his home in Burlington, 
New Jersey, and resumed the long-neglected duties of his office, when his business 
again increased to a large degree. But, in 1796, he was once more elected member 
of congress, and for six years held his seat in the lower house of that body. In all 
the stormy debates of that trying time he took a prominent part. His candor and 
discrimination were ever manifest, while his decision of character was exemplified in 
the votes he cast on those all-important subjects on which he was called to decide. 

In 1796, president Washington appointed Mr. Boudinot as successor to Mr. Ritten- 
house in the direction of the mint. For nine years he discharged the duties of this 
arduous office with entire satisfaction, when he sent in his resignation, and retired 
again to his peaceful home in New Jersey. Declining aU public office^ although fre- 
quently offered its honors and emoluments, he now gave his time and attention to 
the counselling department of his profession and the superintendence of his estate. 
He gave much of his time to the great subjects of religion and biblical literature. 
His hand and his heart went together, as his many munfficent charities both public 
and private most abundantly testify. 

Early in the public life of Mr. Boudinot he was made a trustee of Princeton col- 
lege ; and, in 1805, he founded in it a cabinet of natural history, at an expense of 
several thousand dollars. In 1812, on his election to a seat on the board of com 
missioners for foreign missions, he presented the board with one hundred pounds 
sterling ; and, in 1816, on being elected one of the vice presidents of the American 
Bible Society, he made the society a donation of ten thousand dollars. Besides these 
public gifts, he expended large' sums in private and lesser charities. He also provided 
in his will for the distribution of nearly fifty thousand dollars in behalf of education, 
the Bible, and religion. He died, full of good works and meekly bearing his honors, 
in the eighty-second year of his age, on the 24th of October, 1821. 




GENERAL 0. H. WILLIAMS. 



OTHO HOLLAND WILLIAMS was born in Prince George county, Mary- 
land, in the year 1748. At the early age of twelve, he had the misfortune to 
lose his father. He fell to the care of a Mr. Ross, a brother-in-law, who seems to 
have supplied the place of a father, providing for his education. Early in Hfe, he 
became a clerk in the county office of Frederic, and afterwards removed to the 
clerk's office of Baltimore county. This was in 1766. Here he remained until the 
opening drama of the revolution, when he returned to Frederic and received an 
appointment of lieutenant in the company of rifles commanded by captain Price. 

At this period, he is described by his contemporaries as fuUy six feet in height 
large and elegantly formed, with a manly bearing, full of a healthy vigor and un- 
flinching courage, and possessed withal of such true suaviter in modo as to attach 
strongly all who knew him. He was among the first who rose in behalf of freedom 
from the tyrants' chains; and early in 1775, after receiving his commission, he 
marched with his company to Cambridge, then the head quarters of Washington, 
where he soon came into command of the company, captain Price having been pro- 
moted to the connnand of a battalion. 



472 GENERAL H. WILLIAMS 

Soon after this, captain Williams, having been made a major, was sent to the 
defence of fort Washington, where he behaved with great gallantry, and, receiving 
a severe wound in the groin, was taken prisoner by the Hessians, in whose ranks his 
sharpshooters had made dreadful havoc. He was sent, with other prisoners, to New 
York city, where he was suffered to go at large on his parole of honor ; but his affa- 
ble deportment and polite manners excited the suspicion of the military commander, 
and, fearing that he might be in communication with his friends, he was cast into 
prison and treated with the utmost rigor. With a dozen others he was thrust into a 
small and uncomfortable room, over which a strong and constant guard was posted. 
He was not suffered to leave this den on any occasion, and it was kept in the most 
filthy condition, not being cleaned out more than once or twice a week. The fare 
of the prisoners was of the meanest kind, and not enough even of that was allowed 
to appease their gnawing hunger. His privations and exposure to cold while in this 
inhuman kennel impaired his hitherto healthy constitution, and sowed the seeds of 
the terrible disease to which, at last, he fell a victim. 

At length, major Williams was exchanged for major Acland, who fell into the 
hands of the Americans at the battle of Saratoga, which stripped the proud army of 
Burgoyne of all its boasted glory, and he was released from his painful captivity. He 
was once more in his element, and was immediately engaged in fighting the battles 
of his country. 

Promoted to the command of the sixth regiment of the Maryland line, on his 
release colonel Williams joined the southern army and shared with Gates all tlie 
perils of the disastrous campaign of 1780. During the latter part of this campaign, 
he acted as deputy adjutant general, and his duties were of the most arduous kind, 
summoning all his fortitude and courage. When Greene assumed the command of 
the shattered remnant of the southern army, he was not long in discovering the supe- 
rior genius of Williams, and he soon appointed him adjutant general of his army. 
By the brilliant display of his tact, prudence, consummate wisdom, and manly cour- 
age, he won and retained to the end of that campaign, which terminated so gloriously 
at Yorktown, the entire confidence of his general and the admiration of all the officers 
of the army. It was his bold and skilful charge which decided the battle of Eutaw 
Springs. In the most imminent moment, when the American line began to waver, 
general Greene issued his order, " Let Williams advance and sweep the field with 
his bayonets!" The order was promptly, gallantly, successfully obeyed, and victory 
crowned the American arms. Soon after this CornwaUis was obliged to yield to the 
force of circumstances, and lay down his sword before Yorktown. 

Just before the close of the war, Greene sent colonel Williams Avith important 
despatches to congress ; and that body, after treating him with the greatest consid- 
eration, conferred on him the title of brigadier general as a small reward for his bril- 
liant and useful services in the war. On his return to Maryland, the governor 
appointed him collector of the port of Baltimore ; and, on the adoption of the new 
constitution, president Washington reappointed him to the same office, which he held 
until his death, Avhich occurred on the 16th of .July, 1794, aged only forty-sLx. 



/',^ 
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COLONEL MARINUS WILLETT. 



MARINUS WILLETT, an active and gallant officer in the amiy which 
achieved the independence of our country, was born at Jamaica, Long 
Island, New York, on the 31st of July, 1740. He was the youngest of a numerous 
fiimily of boys, several of whom figured in the old French and revolutionary wars. 
Marinus grew up in arms, and his only training was in the rude home of a farmer 
and the troubled state of war. The exploits of his own and the families of the 
neighborhood seem to have made him, like Normal of old, " long for war ; " and, 
before he was eighteen, " Heaven granted " his desu-e, and he swung his old " queen's 
arms " across his shoulder and marched forth to fight the battles of his country. 

His first taste of war was acquired under General Abercrombie, where he served 
as lieutenant in Colonel Delancy's regiment. At the battle of Ticonderoga lie be- 
haved with coolness and bravery, and shared the disastrous defeat with his com- 
mander. Afterwards he was one of the expedition led against Fort Frontenac by 
General Bradstreet, so many of whom perished by the severities of their dreadful 
march through the wilderness. His slender frame was not competent to endure the 
rigors he was compelled to undergo, and he was obfiged to go into the hospital of 
Fort Stanwix, where he remained until the close of that campaign. 



474 COLONEL MARINUS WILLETT. 

The opening drama of the revolution at Lexington and Concord found Lieutenant 
Willett ready for the grand scenes which were to be enacted upon the American 
soil. As soon as the news of this popular outbreak reached New York, the British 
troops were ordered to Boston. Besides their own necessary stores and military mu- 
nitions, there was a large quantity in the hands of these troops which they resolved to 
carry with them to Boston. Willett determined to cut off this supply, and, hastily raising 
a handful of brave men like himself, he fell upon the wagons containing the arms and 
stores, captured and brought them off in triumph. These arms were afterwards used 
in the cause of the republicans by the first regiment raised by the state of New York. 

In 1775, when Montgomery was appointed commander of the exjiedition against 
Quebec, Willett was made second captain in the regiment of McDougal, which 
figured conspicuously in that fatal campaign. After the death of Montgomery he 
was put in command of St. John's, which comrnand he held until January, 1776. 
The same year he was honored with a lieutenant colonel's commission, and, 
early in 1777, he took the command of Fort Constitution, on the Hudson River. 
In May following he was ordered to Fort Stanwix, the scene of his former suf- 
fering, and remained there nearly a year. While in command of this station 
his splendid military accomplishments were fully displayed. He performed a 
most laborious and difficult manoeuvre, and surprised a large body of Hessians 
and Indians, under the command of Sir John Johnson and the celebrated Brandt, 
which he scattered to the four winds with considerable slaughter. He returned 
in safety to the fort without the loss of a man, bringing, with him five British 
colors and more than twenty wagon loads of stores of every kind, as well as the 
wardrobe and private papers of Sir John and other officers. For this chivalrous act 
Congress voted him the thanks of the nation, and presented him with an elegant 
sword. 

In 1778, Colonel Wifiett joined the army in New Jersey under Washington, and 
was at the battle of Monmouth. In 1779, he joined the expedition under SuUivan 
against the Indians, where he rendered important service. During the years 1780, 
'81, and '82, he was in constant service against the Indians of the Mohawk Valley, 
His thorough acquaintance with these savage foes induced Washington to appoint 
him chief commissioner to treat with the Creek Indians in 1792. The same year he 
was appointed to the command of the expedition against the north-western Indians, 
with the rank of brigadier general. But not approving the nature of the expedition, 
he declined the appointment, and took no further part in the war. 

The last days of Colonel Willett were passed in the city of New York, where he 
bore, for some time, the office of sheriff, and was elected mayor of that city in 1807. 
In 1824, he was chosen one of the presidential electors, and, on the meeting of the 
college, he was called on to preside over that body. He exerted a great influence in 
aU the affairs of the city and the state, and died, universally lamented, on the 23d of 
August, 1830, at the advanced age of ninety years. 




GOVERNOR AARON OGDEN. 



AAllON OGDEN was born on the 3d of December, 1756, at Elizabethtown 
New Jersey. He was gTaduated at Princeton College, New Jersey, in 1773, 
at the age of seventeen. At this time the whole country was in a ferment, for Brit- 
ish aggression had reached its full point of enduranc-e, and resistance had akeady 
showed its determined front. There were many good men in those days who were 
fearful of the result — who hesitatingly asked, "Will not the cost of independence 
be more than it will be worth? And if it be achieved, can it be sustained ?" 

Mr. Ogden was not among this timid class. He felt the value of freedom, and 
counted no cost too grent for its acquisition and maintenance ; and no sooner had 
the tocsin of war sounded its appeal to all true patriots, than he took up the musket 
"to do or die" in the ranks of freemen. His first exploit was successful, and proved 
a good omen to his future life. In December, 1775, the " Blue Mountain Valley," a 
British ship of three hundred ton.-, — loaded with valuable stores for the army, — was 
surprised and taken from almost under the guns of the " Asia," an English ship of 
the line, by a band of resolute volunteers and a detachment from the New Jersey 
line, of which he was one, and safely carried into port. 

■ 27 



476 GOVERNOR AARON OGDEN. 

In the spring of 1777, Mr. Ogden was appointed captain in the Jersey regiment of 
the continental line. In this capacity he rendered important aid in the unfortunate 
battle of Brandywine. Promoted to the position of brigade major in the Jersey 
brigade, he became the aid of Major General Lord Stirling, with whom he fought in 
the battle of Monmouth, on the 2Sth of June, 1778. His duties on this occasion 
were extremely arduous. The day was exceedingly hot, and he was kept upon a 
perpetual gallop to the remote parts of the field of action, or in reconnoitring the 
movements of the enemy ; yet when, at nearly the close of the trying day, Washing- 
ton asked him if he and his horse were not exhausted, he replied that he was ready 
to execute any orders his excellency might please to honor him with, and immediate- 
ly galloped off to reconnoitre a distant wood, of which the enemy had been in pos- 
session through the day. Finding it deserted he reported accordingly, and the Amer- 
ican army advanced and secured the victory. 

In the winter of 1778—9, while the American army lay encamped at ElizabethtoAvn, 
Major Ogden was ordered to reconnoitre a body of the enemy which had been sent to 
attack it. Owing to the extreme darkness he unexpectedly encountered the outposts 
of that body. A sentinel commanded him to dismount ; but determining to escape, 
he wheeled his horse, Avhen he received a severe thrust from the bayonet of another 
sentry whom he had not seen. The steel penetrated between his ribs ; but he per- 
severed in his attempt to escape, -which he effected in safety, although in a very ex- 
hausted state, owing to great loss of blood. 

In 1779, Major Ogden was aid-de-camp of General Maxwell in his brilHant ex- 
pedition against the Indians. He was also actively engaged with the main army in 
New Jersey in 1780, where he exhibited a skill and coolness worthy a veteran. Af- 
ter the resignation of Maxwell, he took command of a company of light infantry 
under the Marquis de Lafayette. While in this command he was employed by 
the commander-in-chief on that mission of mercy by which he strove to save the life 
of the accomplished but unfortunate Major Andre ; the conditions of which were, 
as is well known, that the traitor Arnold should be given up. He executed his mis- 
sion with great adroitness, but failed in its benevolent purpose. Major Ogden served 
with Lafayette until the close of the war, and took a prominent part in the siege at 
Yorktown, sharing in the glory of that crowning act in the drama of the revolution, 
the surrender of Cornwallis. 

On the close of the war Major Ogden studied law, and was admitted as attorney 
to the supreme court of New Jersey, and subsequently as counsellor to all the courts 
of that state. He was afterwards appointed sergeant-at-law, and while holding this 
office he was Jionored with the degree of doctor of laws by his alma mater. 

In 1799, he was appointed to the command of the eleventh regiment of the United 
States army. In 1800, he was chosen an elector, and subsequently one of the com- 
missioners for the definite settlement of the boundary line between that state and 
New York. In 1801, he was chosen senator of Congress, and, in 1803, governor of 
New Jersey. He also sustained many other important offices, among them that of 
major general in the army. 




MAJOR GENERAL LACHLTN MdNTOSH. 



THE McIntosh clan was one of the bravest and most ancient of the Scottisi' 
clans. The kindred houses of Moy and Borlam had for many ages been a 
the head of the house of Chatan, and had been intimately mLxed up in every ques- 
tion which had imbittered Scotland, and for centuries had made the red brand of war 
glare in every dell and flash from every crag of that romantic country. But, in 1715, 
when the pretender was overwhelmed and his power forever destroyed, the Mcintosh 
family was drawn into the vortex of ruin, from which they nevermore rose. 

Until 1736, John More Mcintosh lived on his estates, though utterly shorn of all 
his power and glory, A\^hen he accepted the proposition of General Oglethorpe and 
came to America with all his family and household gods. Arriving in the month of 
February, he settled immediately on the bauks of the Altamaha, and named the 
place New Inverness, which has since been changed to Darien. In 1740, he accom- 
panied General Oglethorpe on his expedition to Florida, in which he was severely 
wounded and became a prisoner. He was afterwards sent to Spain, where he re- 
mained a captive for many years, and at length returned to his family but to die. He 
left two sons, William, and Lachlin, the subject of this memoir, at that time about 
fifteen years of age, having been born at Borlam, near Inverness, Scotland, in 1727, 



478 MAJOR GENERAL LACHLIN Mc IN TOSH. 

In 1745, General Oglethorpe was called to Scotland to assist in another lebellion. 
Just as he was about to sail, the two young Mclntoshes were discovered on board a 
vessel in the fleet. They had resolved to strike one more blow for Scotland and for 
liome ; but General Oglethorpe, who had always been their friend, and, since their 
father's death, their patron, ])revailed upon them to abandon the attempt and re- 
turn again to their home on the Altamaha. The boys had received an excellent edu- 
cation from their mother, who Avas a woman of gi'cat beauty and intelligence, and 
v.hose education had been well cared for. ^Yiliiam, the eldest, settled down and 
became a successful planter ; while Lachlin — but we will commence an account of 
liis career with a new paragraph. 

Soon after the departure of Oglethorpe, Lachlin Mcintosh went to Charleston, 
South Carolina. Here he became acquainted with Henry Laurens, at that time a 
successful merchant in that city, and entered his counting house and family. But 
the taste he had acquired for a military life caused a repugnance for the inactive pur- 
suits of a merchant ; and he once more returned to the banks of the Altamaha, mar- 
ried, and became a land surveyor. 

On the breaking out of the revolutionary war every eye was turned to Mr. Mcin- 
tosh as a leader in the approaching contest ; and on the organization*of the revolu- 
tionary government he was appointed colonel of a regiment raised for defence, and 
shortly after he was raised to the rank of brigadier general. Unhappily bitter feuds 
had grown up between some of the leaders among the Georgian patriots, and he had 
become involved in a quarrel with Gwinnett, president of the council. The result 
was a duel, in which Gwinnett fell and himself was slightly wounded. 

Disgusted Aviih the service in that portion of the country. General Mcintosh joined 
the central army under Washington, and rendered very essential aid in watching the 
movements of General Howe, then occupying Philadelphia. From this post he was 
sent by Congress, on the recommendation of the commander-in-chief, to take com- 
mand of the western districts of Virginia and Pennsylvania, to defend them against 
the attacks of the Indians. He served a while in this region with eminent success, 
when the alarming condition of our southern frontier induced Congress to order him 
to join the southern army at Charleston. After valuable services rendered in various 
parts of the south he was shut up in Cliarleston, and on its surrender became a oris- 
oner of war. 

On his release, a long time after, General iMcIntosh retired to Virginia, where he 
remained until the close of the war, when he returned cnce more to his estates in 
Georgia to find them wasted and his property destroyed. Here, however, he spent 
the brief remnant of his days in trying to retrieve his fortunes, althoitgh with small 
success. He died in Savannah in the year 1806. in the seventy-ninth year of his ago. 




REV. JOHN MURllAY. 



JOHN MURRAY was born in Alton, Hampshire, England, on the 10th of Decem- 
ber, 1741. His father was a rigid Calvinist, and early determined that his first 
born should be most carefully and religiously educated. He was an uncommonly 
bright and precocious child, and when the rite of baptism was administered unto him, 
before he was two years of age, he responded the amen in a loud and distinct tone, 
greatly to the surprise of his parents and the officiating priest. His religious were 
am.ong his earliest impressions, and when a mere child he used to steal away to his 
bed chamber or some other retired spot, to spend an hour in prayer and meditation. 
The instructions of his pious but injudicious father were of the sternest kind, and (he 
impressions he received of God and duty were of the gloomiest nature. 

At the age of eleven, the father of John went to reside in the vicinity of Cork, Ire- 
land, for the purpose of removing his son from the dangers and temptations of Lon- 
don, where he had resided from infancy. 

In his new Irish home, John was constantly under the strict surveillance of his 
anxious father, and made considerable progress in his studies and his religious life, 
and when he was twelve, joined the IMethodists, and became a perfect zealot. Ke 



430 REV. JOHN MURRAY. 

was very anxious to acquire a classical education ; but his over-prudent father dared 
not expose his child to the temptations of a college life, and selected for him some 
manual occupation. At this early age his religious impressions v^^ere very strong, and 
lie used to astonish his father and the simple villagers with his public exercises of 
prayer and exhortation. 

At the age of fifteen young Murray lost his father. Shortly after this event the 
estate of his family, through the wickedness of a near relation, became involved, and 
was in a fair way of being lost to the family forever. John immediately set him- 
self to work to ferret out the mischief, and falling upon a clew, prosecuted his relative, 
and summoned him before the courts of justice. He asked and obtained permission 
to plead his own cause, and triumphantly won his case, astonishing the whole court. 

After two years of a most romantic life in Cork, young Murray went to England, 
vrhere he led the most checkered life, until 1770, when he embarked for America. 
During this period he became a preacher; fell into the worst habits of dissipation ; was 
caressed and persecuted by turns; ran ruinously into debt, and fell into the chitches 
of the law ; mamed and lost both his beloved wife and his only child ; and in a state 
bordering on insanity, determined to seek his fortunes anew in America. It was 
during this romantic passage of his life, that he heard the celebrated Relly, a famous 
preacher of Universalism ; which doctrine, after endeavoring to refute, he embraced 
and professed, and for which he was excommunicated from his church. 

On reaching the United States, the vessel which had borne Mr. Murray thither 
came near being lost, and was driven by stress of weather into an obscure harbor, 
which was to become the opening scene of his future labors in the vineyard of Christ. 
Meanwhile he had thoroughly reformed his vicious habits, and had come to the 
solemn resolution that he would lead an entirely new life. Near the spot of his 
shipwreck there lived a man of singular habits and a pure life, who had erected a 
meeting house for the, benefit of the neighborhood, but who, not finding a preacher to 
his taste, had latterly closed the house against all applicants, declaring that God would 
send him a true preacher in due time. To the house of this man the wanderer was 
directed in search of food, and here he was met by the to him astonishing declaration 
that he had been expected, and all was ready for him. Explanations followed ; he 
asked, and, as he supposed, obtained a sign from Heaven, and commenced, in that 
obscure meeting house, the career which excited the wonder of all the new world. 
From hence he visited New York, Philadelphia, and many other places in the Middle 
States ; thence eastward through all the New England States, preaching to crowded 
and admiring houses in Boston and other places, settling down finally in Gloucester, 
Cape Ann, where he formed a parish and became its pastor in 1776, although he 
was not regularly ordained until 1779, While here he visited England, and was 
also selected by Washington as chaplain to the brigade of continental troops sta- 
tioned at Cambridge. 

In 1793 Mr. Murray was installed over the First Universalist Society in Boston, 
where he labored with great zeal until 1809, when he was seized with paralysis, 
which unfitted him for further active service. His life was prolonged, however, until 
the 3d of September, 1815, when he slept with his fathers, aged seventy-four years. 




COLONEL BENJAMIN TALLMADGE. 



BENJAMIN TALLMADGE was born at Brookhaven, on Long Island, New 
York, on the 25th of February, 1754. Very early in life he discovered a taste 
for reading, and as he grew np his thirst for knowledge increased. Such vras his 
precocity, that at the age of twelve he was examined and pronounced fully prepared 
to enter college ; but on account of his extreme youth he was not permitted to do so 
until 1769. He was gi-aduated from Yale College, in 1773, with high distinction, and 
assumed at once the head of the high school at Wethersfield, Connecticut. 

Entering into the contest of the revolution with great zeal, in 1776 he was com- 
missioned as lieutenant, and appointed adjutant in Colonel Chester's regiment of the 
Connecticut line. He had his first sanguinary taste of war in the battle of Long 
Island, on the 27th of August of the same year. On the breaking up of his regi- 
ment, whose term of service had expired, he was appointed to the command of a 
company of cavalry in the second regiment of light dragoons, which took up its win- 
ter quarters at Wethersfield, and he spent the winter in preparing for the campaign 
of 1777. In the spring he joined the main army in New Jersey, conducting thither, 
as senior captain, a squadron of fom- troops of horse. 

28 



48J: COLONEL BENJAMIN TALL MADGE 

After being engaged in several minor aflairs, Captain Tallmadge was promoted to 
the rank of major, and in that capacity assisted at the battles of Germantown and 
Brandy^vine. He was also at the affair of White Marsh, where he exhibited great 
daring and skilful soldiership. In the winter he was stationed at an outpost between 
the American army encamped at Valley Forge and the enemy, where he was con- 
stantly exposed to attacks from detachments of the British. While here he rendered 
important service by a secret correspondence with a friend in New York city, by 
which he was enabled to communicate much valuable information concerning the 
movements of the foe to the commander-in-chief. 

Early in the campaign of 1780, Major Tallmadge discovered an extensive illicit 
intercourse between the disaffected tories of Connecticut and New York and the 
English army, and determined to break it up. He accordingly applied to Washing- 
ton for a separate command and a sufficient force to act effectively in the premises. 
This was granted ; and after several ineffectual attempts he took a station on the 
Hudson upon the very day that Andre was captured by Paulding, WlUiams, and Van 
Wert. Under a careful disguise and with the assumed name of Anderson, he was 
brought into the presence of Tallmadge. He at once suspected his real character, 
and the resvilt proved the truth and sagacity of those suspicions. 

Every one knows the unfortunate termination of this unhappy affair. Andre was 
tried, convicted, and hung as a spy, amidst the profound regrets of every American 
officer. Tallmadge was with him from the first until he died. He was won by his 
manners, and became very much attached to him, so much so as to make the avowal 
that "his affections were never so fully absorbed by any other man." " When 1 saw 
him swing under the gibbet," he adds, " it seemed for a time wholly insupportable ; 
all were overwhelmed with the affecting spectacle, and the eyes of many were suf- 
fused with tears." 

From this time until the close of the war. Colonel Tallmadge kept up his partisan 
warfare against the enemy, and performed many brilliant feats of hardihood and daring 
which we have not room to record. He retired from the army with the rank of colonel, 
and married a daughter of General Floyd, of Long Island, by whom he had several 
children, and with whom he lived until 1805, when she died. In 1808, he married 
the daughter of Joseph Hallett, Esq., of the city of New York, who survived his 
death many years. In 1793, he united himself to the church ; and from that period 
until his death he was an active, zealous, benevolent, and consistent professor of the 
Christian religion. 

In 1800, Colonel Tallmadge was elected to a seat in the Congress of the United 
States, and was reelected to the same for a period of sixteen years, when he declined 
again being a candidate for the office, and retired to his estates in Connecticut. Here 
he lived greatly respected by every one as a man of the strictest honor and the most 
benevolent disposition. His numerous charities were bestowed in the spirit of his 
Master, and blessed the hearts of many a sorrowing son of humanity. He died on 
the 7th of March, 1835, aged eighty-one years. 




MAJOR GENERAL JAMES CLINTON. 



JAMES CLINTON, the father of De Witt Clinton, whose name is reverently 
cherished as the benefactor to the great state of New York and the friend and 
patron of internal improvements, as also the brother of Governor George Clinton, 
was born in the county of Ulster, New York, on the 9th of August, 1736.. Very 
early he took a liking to the hardy exercise and rude sports of the backwoodsman, 
and when quite young had already made one of several parties of trappers and hunt- 
ers. It was in these excursions that he learned the habits and character of the neigh- 
boring Indians, which knowledge was of so much use to him 'in the subsequent wars. 
On the breaking out of the old French war, in 1755, he enlisted under Bradstreet, 
and was by that brave soldier made a captain the following year. In 1763, he was 
placed in command of a battalion raised for home defence, and siibsequently he was 
promoted to the rank of colonel. 

Colonel Clinton, together with his brother George, the governor of New York dur- 
ing The revolution, were among the first to espouse the cause of the patriots and to 
take up arms in defence of their rights. In 1775, he was joined to the army that 
was to be led against Quebec, and accompanied the brave JNIontgomery on his luck- 



486 MAJOR GENERAL J A ]\I E S CLINTON. 

less and fatal expedition, and returned with the forlorn remnant of that devoted army. 
Here his qualities as a good soldier were put to the severest test, and were found equal 
to the emergency. 

In 1776, Colonel Clinton was elevated to the rank of brigadier general. He was 
placed in command, successively, of Forts Montgomery and Clinton, which he was 
compelled to abandon to the enemy after a most obstinate defence. He barely es- 
caped with his life, and returned to the head quarters of the army, where his services 
were soon after required to lead a formidable force against the Indians, who, under 
Brandt and the infamous Butlers, were spreading devastation vrith lire and sword 
throughout western New York. 

In 1779, General Sullivan was ordered to proceed against this savage foe, whose 
bloody cruelty at Cherry Valley and other places had roused the indignation of the 
country to the highest pitch. General Clinton was united with Sullivan in this ex- 
pedition, but led a separate force, which was to unite with that of Sullivan at Tioga. 
After much labor he reached, in July, the foot of Otsego Lake, around whose flat shores 
many of the Indians made their homes and raised their corn. It being a very dry sea- 
son, he found the outlet of the lake quite too shallow to allow his boats to pass. In 
this dilemma he resorted to the expedient of damming the mouth of the outlet, which 
caused the waters to overflow the banks, and thus to destroy the crops which were 
just then reaching the milk, and filling the savages with astonishment, who could not 
imagine by what cause such a sudden flood should overwhelm them in the middle of 
an unusually dry season. When the waters in the lake were sufficiently swollen the 
obstructions were removed, and his bateaux passed triumphantly on the bosom of the 
torrent, and thus he was enabled to effect his junction with Sullivan at Tioga. The 
object of the expedition was fully gained, and Brandt and his brutal coadjutors, the 
brothers Butlers, with their savage auxiliaries, were utterly scattered and di;^raayed. 
Many unnecessary cruelties were practised, and much valuable property was destroyed; 
but this was deemed necessary to inspire the minds of these savage foes wdth a sense 
of the prowess of American arms, and to deter them from further bloody atrocities. 
Yet it must forever cause the cheek of every humane American to tingle at the re- 
membrance of the cruel deeds which were done by our fathers' hands in Jhat relent- 
less and bloody expedition. 

During the remainder of the war of the revolution, General Clinton held his head 
quarters at Albany, and was attached to the northern army, where he rendered very 
important aid in bringing to a successful issue the great struggle for independence. 
On retiring from the field of strife, he settled on his estates near Newburg, Orange 
county, New York, where he lived many years in the enjoyment of the honors he had 
reaped, filling various civil offices, and highly respected by all who knew him. On 
his retirement he received the public thanks of his native state and the nation, and 
he went down to his grave with all his honors clustering thick upon his head. He 
died on the 22d of December, 1812, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. 




COMMODOEE NICHOLAS BIDDLE. 

IVriCHOLAS BIDDLE was bom in the city of Philadelphia on the 10th of Sep- 
ISS tember, 1750. Very early in life, he exhibited a strong predilection for " a life 
on the ocean wave," and, before he was twenty, had made several voyages to 
other countries. But his aspiring rnincl was not at all satisfied with a mere sailor's 
life, and so he went to England with the intention of entering the British navy. No 
sooner, therefore, had he reached London than he purchased a midshipman's commis- 
sion, and served in that capacity for one or two voyages. On his return to London, 
he joined an expedition about to sail, which had been fitted out by the Royal Society, 
to ascertain how far navigation was practicable towards the north pole ; to advance 
the discovery of the north-west passage into the south seas ; and to make such astro- 
nomical observations as might prove serviceable to navigation. Impelled by the same 
bold and enterprising spirit, young, afterwards lord, Nelson had solicited and obtained 
permission to enter on board the same vessel; and both acted in the capacity of cock- 
swains — a station always assigned to the most active and trusty seamen. The expe- 
dition, having penetrated as far as the eighty-first degree of north latitude returned 
to Engfland in 1774. 



488 coMiNioDorxE Nicholas biddle. 

Hearing of the state of affairs between England and her American colonies, Mr. 
Biddle, fired with a love of his native country, returned home and offered his services 
to the continental congress. His offer was gi'atefuUy accepted, and he was immedi- 
ately placed in command of the Andrew Doria, a brig of fourteen guns. He was 
ordered to join the squadron under commodore Hopkins, and sailed with him in his 
expedition against New Providence. 

Having reached this port, captain Biddle was ordered to cruise off the banks of 
Newfoundland. Here he was very successful, and captured several vessels from the 
enemy, having on board armaments of war and soldiers destined to fight against his 
country. After cruising on this coast for several months, he returned with his tro- 
phies of victory to the port from which he sailed. He received the thanks of the 
continental government, and was immediately appointed to the command of Ihe 
Randolph, a frigate of thirty-two guns. 

After some time, captain Biddle succeeded in filling up his crew and getting on 
board a sufficient quantity of magazines to put to sea. He sailed from Philadelphia 
in February, 1777. After cruising some weeks in the West Indian seas, he fell in 
with an English ship of twenty guns, having under convpy a squadron of several sail 
of merchantmen. These he captured, and conveyed them safely into the port of 
Charleston, South Carolina. This w^as most opportune, as the munitions of war in 
these prizes were very much needed at that time, and the guns of the English ship 
were turned successfully in favor of the American cause. 

Here captain Biddle lay in ordinary through the winter, refitting his ship and mak- 
ing every preparation for another cruise as soon as the spring should open. Late in 
February, he weighed his anchors for the last time, and commenced that fatal cruise 
which terminated so mournfully to him and his gallant crew and so disastrously to 
the cause of the patriots. On the night of the 7th of March, 1778, he fell in with 
the British ship Yarmouth, of sixty-four guns, and immediately engaged with her. 
Shortly after the action commenced, he received a severe wound and fell. He soon, 
however, ordered a chair to be brought, and, being carried forward, encouraged the 
crew. The fire of the Randolph was constant and well directed, and appeared, while 
the battle lasted, to be in a continual blaze. In about twenty minutes after the 
action began, and while the surgeon was examining his wounds on the quarter 
deck, the Randolph blew up. The number of persons on board the Randolph was 
three hundred and fifteen, all of whom perished except four men, who were tossed 
about for four days on a piece of the ^^Teck before they were discovered and taken up. 

Thus fell the brave Biddle, in the young, fresh flush of his triumphal career, not 
yet twenty-eight years of age. He was as brave a sailor as ever trod the planks of a 
frigate, and as gentle and true a friend as ever was " grappled with hooks of steel " 
to one's strong heart. The country mourned him as a mother would a beloved child, 
and his praises were said and sung by all true patriots all over 

" The land of the free and the home of the brave." 




JOHN EAGAE HOAYARD. 



."One after anothor the stars of our revolutionary firmament are sinking below the horizon. They 
rise in another hemisphere as they are setting to us ; and the youth of other times will gaze upon their 
lustre, as he learns their names and marks them clustering into constellations, which will recall to 
his mind some interesting event of our period of struggle." 



AMONG the gay and gallant bands which clustered around the ark of our com- 
mon cause, in those dark times which preceded our national independence, gen- 
eral John Eagar Howard was one of the foremost. He was born in the city of 
Baltimore, Maryland, on the 4th of June, 1752. Of one of the first famihes of that 
state, he was educated to no particular vocation ; and on arriving at his majority he 
was ready to join the patriotic bands which the thunders of Lexington and Bunker 
hill had called from their various spheres of activity, and to range himself with the 
defenders of freedom and their own firesides. Upon the first offer of his services he 
was presented with a colonel's commission ; but a modest sense of his own ability 
led him to decline so responsible a trust, and to accept a captaincy, on condition of 
his being able to recruit his own men. Such was his popularity, even at that early 



490 JOHN EAGAR HOWARD. 

period of life, that the necessary complement was obtained in two days ; and he 
marched immediately to join the army in New Jersey. In this capacity he partici- 
pated in the battle of White Plains, and was with the army until December, 1776, 
when his company was disbanded. 

Congress had voted to raise an army in September preceding, and in the organiza 
tion of the Maryland portion of that army Howard was appointed a major. He 
joined his battalion just after the battle of Brandywine ; but was in season for that 
of Germantown, where he gave indications of his rising prowess and valor, and 
where, in the absence of the colonel of his regiment, he had the command during the 
battle. He also assisted at the battle of Monmouth, and was afterwards raised tc 
the rank of lieutenant colonel of the fifth regiment of the IMaryland line. 

In April, 1780, the Maryland and Delaware troops were detached to the aid ot 
Charleston, but did not reach the Carolinas until after the city had fallen into the 
hands of the enemy. But they pushed on to join the southern army. In July, 
Gates entered the camp and took the command. Howard accompanied him in his 
arrogant march, and shared in his humiliating defeat and painful retreat. In early 
December Greene arrived and assumed the command. Soon after a strong detach- 
ment was placed under the command of Morgan, of which four hundred of the Ma- 
ryland troo))s, under Howard, formed a part. With this force the famous battle of 
the Cowpens was fought, and which was the first really crippling blow given in the 
south, and from which the English never recovered. In this brilliant aflair colonel 
Howard took a conspicuous part, and bore himself with the utmost gallantry, having 
in his hands at one time as many as seven swords which had been resigned to him 
during the encounter. 

Tliis victory infused joy throughout the whole country, and revived the drooping 
spirits of the patriots. Congress voted Morgan, colonel Washington, and How- 
ard thanks, and each a medal descriptive of the battle that day fought. In the 
arduous duties of protecting the retreat of Greene upon Virginia, colonel Howard 
took his full share ; and in the battle of Guilford he performed feats of bravery 
which greatly added to his already growing reputation. 

At the battle of Eutaw colonel Howard had the command of the second regiment, 
whose gallant conduct gi-eatly contributed to the victory on that occasion. This was 
the last of his active service, for in the latter part of this action he received a musket 
ball in his left shoulder, which passed quite through his body. He was removed to 
Baltimore, as soon as his wound permitted, with the highest encomiums of Greene, 
who said that " lie ivas as good cm officer as the loorhl afforded^ 

In 1788, colonel Howard was chosen governor of Maryland ; in 1794, he declined 
an appointment of major general in the militia ; in 1795, he declined a seat in AVash- 
ington's cabinet, having been offered the secretaryship of war. At this time he was 
in the Maryland senate, but was soon after transferred to that of the United States. 
In 1814, when Baltimore was threatened, he took command of a company of vet- 
erans, but was not called to the field. He died on the 12th of October, 1827, in the 
seventy-sixth year of his age. 




COLONEL WILLIAM A. WASHINGTON. 



WILLIAM AUGUSTINE WASHINGTON, one of the family of George 
Washington, was born in Stafford county, Virginia, about the year 1755 
He was the son of Baily Washington, by whom he was destined for the church. 
He had made considerable proficiency in the Latin and Greek languages, when the 
guns of Lexington and Bunker Hill roused him from his peaceful pursuits, and he 
immediately took up arms in his country's cause. He was at once appointed to the 
command of a company of infantry in the third regiment of the Virginia line. He 
fleshed his maiden steel at the affair of York Island, where his conduct won the 
praise of his superior officers. 

Captain Washington was with the army in its retreat through New Jersey, and 
led the van in the attack upon the Hessians, in which gallant act he received a 
bullet through the hand. Shortly after, when several regiments of light dragoons 
were raised, he was promoted to the rank of major in the regiment commanded by 
colonel Baylor, which was before long surprised and entirely cut up by a detachment 
of the enemy. Barely escaping with his life, he was detached to join the army in. 
South Carolina, under general Lincoln, the following year. From this time until he 

29 



492 COLONEL WILLIAM A. WASHINGTON. 

was taken prisoner at the battle of Eutaw, his field of operation lay in the south 
One of his first exploits was an encounter with the large body of the enemy under 
lieutenant colonel Tarlton, with whom he fought hand to hand. It is related that 
in this skirmish Tarlton lost three of his fingers by a blow from the sword of 
Washington. 

After some sad reverses, and being raised to the rank of lieutenant colonel, Wash- 
ington, with his squadron of horse, was attached to the light corps under general 
Morgan. One of his first exploits was at Rugleys, where a large body of the enemy 
was strongly posted. Knowing his own inferiority, he resorted to artifice. Mount- 
ing a log on the fore wheels of a wagon, and so painted as to resemble a heavy 
piece of ordnance, and placing it on a neighboring eminence, he boldly rode up to 
the garrison and demanded its immediate surrender, threatening instant destruc- 
tion if resistance or delay should follow. The affrighted colonel having command of 
the station at once gave up his sword and surrendered at discretion. 

At the spirited affair of the Cowpens, colonel Washington rendered gallant service, 
and came near terminating his brilliant career. His zeal had carried him too far 
in advance, and he suddenly found himself surrounded with the enemy. Cool and 
intrepid, he resisted bravely for some time, when, just as the heavy sabre of a stout 
dragoon was descending upon his head, a pistol ball, sent by his bugleman, who 
hastily rode up to his aid, shattered the uplifted arm, and the sword fell harmlessly to 
the ground. 

When the two divisions of the army were united at Guilford court house, Wash- 
ington's ti'oop was incorporated into the cavalry of Greene's army, and placed under 
the command of colonel Williams. In the battle of Guilford, he once more had a 
narrow escape with his life, but behaved himself wiih his accustomed gallantry. 
During the retreat of our unfortunate army through Carolina into Virginia, he af- 
forded great protection to the army by hovering about the flanks, assailing the front 
of the enemy, and annoying them by various modes of attack. At the battle of 
Eutaw, his career was arrested. His horse was shot under him, and he was taken 
prisoner, and remained in captivity until the close of the war. 

On the ratification of peace, he returned to Charleston and married a lady of great 
mental and personal accomplishments, passing much of his time on his plantation at 
Sandy Hill. He was chosen a member of the legislature, where he acquired great 
popularity, and was solicited by his friends to stand as a candidate for governor. His 
answer is characteristic, and is as follows : " There are two powerful reasons which 
render it impossible for me to aspire to the honor of governing the state. The first 
is, that, until lately, I was a stranger among you ; and, in my opinion, the chief exec- 
utive officer should be a native of the land over which he presides. . . . ]\Iy other 
reason is insurmountable. If I were elected governor, I should be obliged to make a 
speech ; and I know that in doing so, without gaining credit in your estimation, the 
consciousness of inferiority would humble me in my own — g-entlemen, I cannot make 
a speech ! " 

Entitled to the rank and title of general., Mr. Washington was usually called colo- 
nel, to distinguish him from his great namesake and relation. He died on the 6th of 
March, 1810, aged fifty-five years. 




ENOCH PARSONS. 



ENOCH PARSONS was bom at Lyme, Connecticut, on the 5th of November, 
1769. His father, Samuel Holden Parsons, was a major general in the conti- 
nental army, and at one time one of Washington's aids. He was the first chief 
justice appointed for the North-west Territory, He was related, also, to the cele- 
brated Mather family on the maternal side, as well as the Wolcotts, who have fig- 
ured so conspicuously in the history of the state of Connecticut. 

In his early life, young Parsons exhibited traits of a vigorous and acquisitive mind, 
and a taste for the more abstruse studies, particularly the mathematical. Although 
he did not receive, properly speaking, a classical education, yet his early privileges 
were of the best kind and most faithfully improved. He spent several years in the 
pursuit of his academical studies, both at Pomfret and Plainfield, whose schools have 
acquired a high stand among the academic institutions of the state of Connecticut. 
His course of study was very extensive and thorough, and, when he left school, he 
was a good classical scholar, and had his mind well stored with the more solid and 
practical knowledge which was to fit him for the great and active duties of life. 
. Having decided upon the mercantile profession, INIr. Parsons entered the service of 



494 ENOCH PARSONS 

Messrs. Broome & Pratt, a large commercial house in New Haven. Here his eminent 
titness as a financier soon began to appear, and at the end of two years he became 
a thorough master of all the mysteries of trade. His accuracy as an accountant 
attracted the notice of the late Governor Oliver Wolcott, Jr., then state auditor of 
accounts for the state of Connecticut, by whom he was engaged to arrange and 
adjust the accounts of the revolutionary claimants of the state upon the national 
government. 

In the spring and summer of 1788, being then only eighteen years of age, he ac- 
companied his father, who, as we have seen, was appointed chief justice over the 
North-western Territory, then including the states of Ohio, Indiana, Elinois, and 
Michigan. He traversed a large portion of those unsettled regions, and kept a jour- 
nal of whatever he thought might be valuable to remember; including a history of 
the various tribes of Indians, with their languages, manners, and customs ; the geol- 
ogy and geography, as well as the botany and hygeia, of the country. He also 
explored and examined the tumuli of that region, then wrapped in obscurity, and, in 
1789, communicated a valuable paper upon the result of his investigation to Presi- 
dent Stiles, of Yale College, and which is still preserved amongst the papers of that 
institution. 

The same year Mr. Parsons was appointed by Governor St. Clair clerk of the first 
probate office established in Washington county. Here he remained until 1790, 
when he resigned, and returned to Middletown, Connecticut. He was soon after 
appointed by the general assembly of the state high sheriff of Middlesex county, 
being then but just turned of twenty-one. This office he discharged with entire 
acceptance for the space of twenty-eight years, when he resigned on account of ill 
health and numerous other pressing duties of a private nature. During all this time 
he was repeatedly solicited to assume other offices of high trust and honor, but 
steadily declined. 

It was principally through the exertions of Mr. Parsons that a branch of the United 
States Bank was established at Middletown, in his native state, of which he was 
chosen a director ; and, in 1818, he was elected president of the same. In 1824, 
the bank was removed to Hartford, whither also he went, and still continued to pre- 
side over its concerns until the expiration of its charter. From this period until his 
death, in 1846, he devoted his time and energies to mercantile pursuits and to the 
enjoyments of literature and home. 

" In all the relations of domestic and social life, Mr. Parsons was beloved and 
respected. He was twice married, and left three children by the first marriage and 
one by the second — two only of whom survive him. In these relations, he was ever 
the generous and affectionate husband and the kind and faithful parent. His habits 
and feelings were social and communicative ; and, in his intercourse with his fellow- 
men, dignity was seen blended witli the utmost courtesy and kindness. He was a 
true gentleman of the olden school, and every son of New England will understand 
what this means." 

On the 9th of July, 1846, in full trust in God, he fell asleep, in the seventy-seventh 
year of his age. 




MAJOU GENERAL JAMES JACKSON. 

JAMES JACKSON was bom in the county of Devon, in England, in 1757. 
He came to this country in 1772, under the patronage of John Wareat, a lead- 
ing whig of the city of Savannah, Georgia. Here he commenced the study of the 
law, in the office of that gifted attorney and counsellor, Samuel Farley, Esq. Before 
he could complete his studies, however, the troublesome events of the revolution 
called him to more serious purposes. In 1775, he enlisted in the cause of the patriots, 
and shouldered his musket as a private in the army of independence. 

When Savannah was invested by the British in 1776, young Jackson, then only a 
lad, headed a party of nine other brave spirits like himself, boarded one of the enemy's 
ships lying in the river, took possession of her, and then set fire to her and suffered 
her to float down the river in the midst of the inimical fleet, causing much conster- 
nation and no small damage. In the same year he was made captain of a company 
of light infantry; and after holding this commission a few months, he was appomted 
a major of brigade in the Georgia miUtia. After the faU of Savannah the patriots 
were reduced to the greatest misery; and major Jackson, finding no employment m 
Georgia, resolved to unite himself to general Moultrie's command in South Carolina. 



496 MAJOR GENERAL JAMES JACKSON. 

He accordingly started on foot and alone; penniless, barefoot, his wardrobe in tatters 
but with a stout heart, onward he went. Before he reached the army, however, he 
was met by a party of American soldiers, seized and carried into their camp, sum- 
marily tried, and found guilty of being a spy, and ordered to immediate execution. 
This order was only arrested by the timely arrival of one who knew him. • 

In 1779, he was engaged in the unsuccessful attack on Savannah, under Lincoln 
and D'Estaing. In March, 1780, he fought a duel with lieutenant governor Wells, 
whom he slew, himself being shot through both knees. Persisting in his resistance 
to amputation, he was abandoned by his surgeons. But his strong constitution pre- 
.vailed ; and after many months of misery and inaction, we find him once more in the 
Georgia camp in August, 1780. He served with great gallantry in the following cam- 
paign, under Sumpter and Twiggs. His whole course, indeed, throughout the war 
was marked by acts of heroic daring and wise and energetic measures. Being com- 
missioned with a separate command, his legion acquired great notoriety by its bold 
achievements, and won the admiration of all the people of the south. But we can- 
not follow his erratic and predatory steps, for it would consume too much of our 
space. He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel before the close of the war ; and 
on his retiring from the army, the legislature of Georgia unanimously voted theiy 
thanks " for his many great and useful services," and presented him a house and lot 
in the city of Savannah, "as a mark of the sense entertained by them of his merits." 

Soon after peace was ratified, colonel Jackson opened an office in Savannah and 
commenced the practice of law. In 1785, he M'as married to Mary Charlotte Young, 
a daughter of a deceased patriot. For several years he served in the state legislature. 
In 1786, he was made general of brigade, in which office he rendered good service in 
repressing the outrages of the Creek Indians on the seaboard of his adopted state. 

In 1788, he was elected governor of Georgia, at the age of thirty years. But his 
military duties led him to decline this new honor. In 1789, he was elected to con- 
gress from the eastern district of the state. In 1791, general Wayne was elected in 
his place, and, contesting his seat, he lost it by the casting vote of the speaker. He 
accused the judge, who presided at the polls, of corruption ; and secured a sentence 
of deposition from office, and total disqualification for any civil office for thirty years. 
In 1792, he was again sent to the state legislature ; and the same year was made 
major general. Late in the autumn of the same year he was elected a member of the 
senate of the United States, and took his seat in that dignified body in the following 
year. After serving three years in the senate, he was recalled by the citizens of Sa- 
vannah to become a member of the legislature, where he took a prominent part in the 
violent measures of that body in reference to what has been called " the Yazoo spec- 
ulation." 

In 1798, governor Jackson was a member of the convention which framed the pres- 
ent constitution of Georgia ; and the same year he was again chosen governor, which 
office he held three years.' In 1801, he was once more returned to the senate of the 
United States, of which body he remained a member until his death, which occurred 
at Washington, on the 19th of. March, 1806, at the age of forty-nine years. 




GOUVERNEUE MORRIS. 



G OU VERNE UR iMORRIS was born at Morrisiana, near Harlem, New York, 
on the last day of January, 1752. No record of his early life is to be found, 
except that he was attentive to iiis books, and made rapid proficiency in his studies 
considering the means with which he was favored. When he was only twelve years 
of age he was sent to King's college, whence, after a full course of study, he was 
graduated in 1768. On quitting college he commenced the preparation of the busi- 
ness of his life. He studied law three years, when he was licensed as a legal prac- 
titioner. He opened his office in the city of New York in the winter of 1771-7:2, 
and rapidly rose in the practice of his profession. 

This was at a period when energetic minds were certain to be brought into public 
notice. The country was convulsed with the mighty questions of human rights, in- 
volving immediately the rights of the American colonies. Mr. Morris was not tiie 
man to look listlessly on while such weighty events of life were being enacted around 
him, or to keep his silence while the controversies of justice were going on before his 
eyes. He lifted up his voice — always on the side of his oppressed country — and 
made himself heard by the cringing sycophants of kingly authority. He used his 

30 



500 GOUVERNEUR iM ORRIS. 

pen, also, — and he wielded a powerful one, — and suffered no occasion to go by 
where he could utter a word on the great subject of individual or national rights. 

In 1775, Mr. Morris was elected to the provinciial congress of New York, where he 
took a forward part in the construction of a new constitution for the government of 
that state. He was a member of the committee chosen to draft this instrument, and 
his was the pen that framed nearly all its principal articles. And when the conti- 
nental congress was assembled in the city of Philadelphia, in 1777, he was therewith 
his powerful mind to sustain the immortal declaration of independence, and to pre- 
pare and support measures to carry out its glorious principles. 

In the regulation of the finances of the new government few men had a larger 
share than Gouverneur Morris. In 1781, he was made " Assistant Superintendent of 
Finance," and labored with his great namesake, Robert Morris, in creating the means 
of keeping our feeble government alive. He was among the few hearts of oak who 
did not despond in those dark and trying scenes, when the very existence of our name 
hung upon a single precarious hair. Early and late he delved in his unthankful busi- 
ness, figuring up results and prospects without any hopeful gi'ounds, counselling with 
his coadjutor and other mighty men of the nation, carrying on a wide and most val- 
uable correspondence, writing long articles for the public journals, and travelling from 
town to town, from the extreme south to the extreme east, to examine and compare 
their relative abilities and necessities ; sparing no pains or time, and pouring into the 
treasury of his suffering, bleeding, fainting country all the patrimony which the active 
and economical life of his parent had prepared for him. 

In 17S7, Mr. Morris was elected a member of the convention called to frame a 
constitution for the government of the United States. He bore an active part in the 
debates of that body ; and when the subject of government had been thoroughly dis- 
cussed and the various and heterogeneous propositions had all been presented, his was 
the magic pen that was called on to arrange this incongruous mass into order and 
beauty. He performed his most difficult task with great success, and that noble in- 
strument now stands on the record just as it came from his revising pen. 

In 1792, Mr. Morris went to France as minister plenipotentiary for his government. 
He remained there two years, and rendered most efficient service in arranging the 
tangled relations which existed between that power and the United States. He re- 
turned home in 1794, and rested for a while from his public duties ; but, in 1800, he 
was elected a member of the United States senate. His vast financial knowledge, 
his fine legal attainments, and his undoubted patriotism rendered him one of the most 
efficient members of that high body. In 1804 he retired from the senate, and not 
long after from public life altogether. He died in 1816, at the age of sixty-four years. 




JAMES RIVINGTON. 



ALTHOUGH in its comparative infancy, the press wielded no insignificant power 
in the days of the American revolution ; and those who controlled or furnished 
material for those mighty engines of power are as deserving a place in the page of 
our country's history as those who pointed the cannon or marshalled the gallant 
armies of those days of glorious struggle. The printing presses of the eighteenth 
century in the city of New York were not, as now, to be met by scores in every 
business street and lane of the town, occupying the largest buildings, full of power- 
ful machinery, driven by steam, and employing hundreds of men, women, and chil- 
dren. A single room, or two, at most, in some upper story, with a single and awkward 
press, worked by hand and capable of uttering a full hundred sheets per hour, to- 
gether with a font or two of battered type, was the best to be hoped for in those days 
of small things. 

In one of these dingy offices, situated at the foot of Wall street. New York, the 
" Royal Gazetteer," a seven by nine sheet of brown and coarse paper, was issued 
every week, filled with advertisements, anecdotes, poetry, and a few columns of 
original political squibs, all of which was owned and managed by James Rivixgton, 



502 JAMES RIVINGTON. 

and devoted to the royal interests in the American colonies. He was a native of 
London, born in 1724, of a highly respectable family, and received an excellent ed- 
ucation. In 1760, he emigrated to America. He immediately proceeded to Phil- 
adelphia and opened a bookstore ; and the year following he established another in 
New York, as we have seen, near the bottom of Wall street, since become the great 
money mart of the United States. 

In 1773, he established his political journal, and devoted its columns to the sup- 
port of the British ministry and its most obnoxious measures. His abuse of the 
whigs was unstinted, and the satirical productions of his able pen filled the co.lumns 
of the " Royal Gazetteer." Annoyed and enraged by his vituperative abuse, captain 
Sears, from Connecticut, headed a party of seventy-five horsemen, and on the 23d 
of November, 1775, proceeded in solemn procession to his office. Having set a strong 
guard, they proceeded to carry off all his types, after having utterly ruined his presses 
and all the other implements of his trade. After having effected their patriotic pur- 
pose, they returned in the same order in which they had entered the city, attended by 
the shouts of a multitude of men and boys. 

After this Rivington went to England ; but on the occupation of New York by the 
British army he returned again, and, in 1777, resumed the publication of his paper 
under the same title, which, in 1780, he changed to that of the " Royal Gazette." 
He now published it semi-weekly, styling himself " the king's jirintery The pro- 
ductions of his pen were sharply pointed ; but his good nature was unfailing, and he 
seldom indulged in coarse and low abuse. He was gentlemanly in his manners, but 
a man of loose conceptions of honor or truth ; yet he was a shrewd observer, and 
continued to keep on the side of power and patronage. 

When, in 1781, he perceived that the royal power in America must decline, and 
that the prospect of the establishment of their independence by the whigs grew daily 
more evident, he sagaciously sought to curry favor with the patriots, and showed him- 
self ready to betray the confidence of the royalists in the most contemptible manner. 
He furnished Washington with important information, and played the spy among 
his old friends and patrons, while he was betraying their dearest interests into the 
hands of their enemies. He wrote his communications on slips of thin paper, and 
bound them into the covers of certain books, which he took good care should fall into 
the hands of the commander-in-chief, at the same time becoming more abusive than 
ever of the whigs in the columns of the " Royal Gazette." He had the tact to keep 
the English general in blissful ignorance of his perfidious course ; and when the British 
evacuated the city he remained, to the surprise of all except those in the secret. But 
his treason transpirea after a brief season, and he was now detested by all parties. 
He was neglected, and his business fell away, and at length was utterly destroyed. 
He lost the property he had accumulated during the war, and passed the latter days 
of his life in comparative neglect and obscurity — suffering for the bare necessities 
of life. At length, in July, 1802, he laid down his inglorious life, — 

'• Unwept, unlionored, and unsung." 




EDMUND BUHKE. 



EDMUND BURKE, one of the most eloquent men and powerful writers Eng- 
land has ever produced, and a true and unflinching friend to the cause of the 
American colonists, was born in Carlow, in Ireland, on the first day of the year 1730. 
After a thorough preparatory course of study he entered the university at Dublin, 
where he acquired a thorough classical and finished education and was graduated as 
bachelor of arts in 1749. He had already acquired such fame as a keen logician and 
lucid expositor of knotty philosophical questions that he was talked of as a suitable 
aspirant to the chair of logic and philosophy in the university at Glasgow. But his 
youth prevented, and he went to London and entered the Middle Temple, and passed 
through a faithful course of legal studies, preparatory to entering upon public life. 

On leaving the Temple, Mr. Burke gave his attention more to literature and pol- 
itics than to the duties of his profession, and soon became a powerful wTiter and 
debater. In 1755, he wrote his " Vindication of Natural Society," and in 1757, his 
essay on " The Sublime and Beautiful ; " productions which at once marked him as 
a profound politician and philosopher, and which immediately brought him into pub- 
lic notice. In 1758, in company with Dodswell, he commenced the publication of 



504 EDMUND BURKE. 

the "Annual Register," a periodical which became very popular. It embraced a 
wide range in politics, philosophy, religion, the arts, and belles lettres, taking lofty 
views of men, and advocating the most liberal principles in their conduct. 

In 1761, Mr. Burke went to L-eland in company with Gerard Hamilton ; and 
through the influence of that gentleman he obtained a pension of fifteen hundred 
dollars on the Irish establishment. After his return to England, which he had now 
made his home, he made the acquaintance of the marquis of Rockingham, into 
whose service, as private secretary, he entered. With this gentleman he remained 
several years, when, through his influence, he was enabled to procure an election to 
the house of commons, where he took his seat in the winter of 1773-74. At this 
time the American troubles were the principal subject of discussion in parliament, 
and he immediately entered, heart and soul, into the defence of the colonists, who 
were struggling for their liberties. 

In March, 1774, lord North introduced to the house of commons that obnoxious 
measure called the " Boston Port Bill." This called out the utmost abuse and rid- 
icule from the royalists, and every opprobrious epithet ^vas heaped upon the rebels, as 
they were familiarly termed. This roused the patriotism of Burke ; and taking the 
floor, he poured forth his indignation in the most withering terms upon the unjust 
measures which were so vehemently urged against the patriots. He then with great 
clearness and force pointed out the impolicy and unjustness of that particular bill, as 
well as other measures of parliament which were intended to coerce the colonists into 
subjection. " It is wished, then," he continued, "to condemn the accused without a 
hearing, to punish indiscriminately the innocent with the guilty ! You will thus 
in'cvocably alienate the hearts of the colonics from the mother country. Before the 
adoption of so violent a measure, the principal merchants of the kingdom should at 
least be consulted. The bill is unjust, since it bears only upon the city of Boston, while 
it is notorious that all America is in flames ; that the cities of Philadelphia, of New 
York, and all the maritime towns of the continent, have exhibited the same disobe- 
dience. You are contending for a matter which the Bostonians will not give up 
quietly. They cannot, by such means, be made to bow to the authority of ministers ; 
on the contrary, you will find their obstinacy confirmed and their fury exasperated. 
The acts of resistance in their city have not been confined to the populace alone, but 
men of the first rank and opulent fortune in the place have openly countenanced 
them. One city in proscription and the rest in rebellion can never be a remediai 
measure for general disturbances." 

When North was compelled to retire from the premiership, Burke was appointed 
paymaster general, and took a scat in the council. On the trial of Hastings, he ap 
peared against him, and his arguments on the floor of commons were among the 
most eloquent and powerful that any learned body ever listened to ; and when, in 
1794, he retired from public life, his fame was greater than that of any other English 
statesman. He received, as a mark of the vahie of his services and the high respect 
in which he was held, a pension of six thousand dollars. His compositions are 
among the finest specimens of English literature, and are considered a standard both 
in England and America. He died on the 8th of July, 1797, being in the sixty-eighth 
year of his age. 



VOLUME II. 



PART III. 



EI\I BRACING THE PERIOD 

SUBSEQUENT TO THE WAR OF 

1812. 




JAMES MADISON. 



JAMES MADISON, the fourth President of the United States, was born in 
Orange county, Virginia, on the 16th of March, 1751. In his youth he was 
favored with the instruction of a Scotchman by the name of Robertson, under whose 
faithful care that taste for elegant and classical literature was developed which 
marked his official career. He completed his preparatory studies under the oversight 
of Rev, Mr. Martin, and was graduated at Princeton College in 1771. He remained 
in college a year after receiving his bachelor's degree, that he might pursue his 
studies under charge of Dr. Witherspoon, between whom and himself a warm friend- 
ship sprang up, which lasted during the life of the doctor. When he left college 
and returned to Virginia, he did so with a shattered constitution, the result of over 
study. But such was his desire for knowledge, that he entered into the study of the 
law with great zeal, intending to make it his profession. 

In this, however, Mr. Madison was disappointed — instead of a lawyer, he be- 
came a statesman. When scarcely twenty-five years of age, in the memorable year 
of 1776, he was elected a member of the General Assembly of Virginia. From this 
period, for more than forty years, he was continually in office, serving his state and 
his comitry in various capacities, from a member of the state legislature to the 

31 



508 JAMES MADlSOiN 

presidency of the United States. The year following he lost his election, it is said, 
because, while a candidate, his moral sense forbade his submission to the pernicious 
custom of " treating " the electors at the hustings. 

In 1778, Mr. Madison was elected by the legislature to the executive council of the 
state, where he rendered important aid to Henry and Jefferson, governors of Virginia, 
during the time he held a seat in the council ; and by his probity of character, faith- 
fulness in the discharge of duty, and araiableness of deportment, he won the appro- 
bation of these great men. In the winter of 1779-80, he took his seat in the Con- 
tinental Congress, and became immediately an active and leading member, as the 
journal of that body abundantly testifies. He continued to hold his seat in that 
august assembly of patriots until 1783. 

In 1784, '5, and '6, Mr. Madison was a member of the legislature of Virginia. 
In 1787, he became a member of the convention held in Philadelphia for the pur- 
pose of preparing a constitution for the government of the United States. Perhaps 
no member of that body had more to do with the formation of that noble instrument, 
the " Constitution of the United States of America," than Mr. Madison. 

It was during the recess between the proposition of the constitution by the con- 
vention of 1787 and its adoption by the states that that celebrated work, " The 
Federalist," made its appearance. This is known to be the joint production of 
Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. This same year he was elect- 
ed to Congress, and held his seat until the Continental Congress passed away among 
the things that were. He was a member of the state convention of Virginia which 
met to adopt the constitution, and on the establishment of the new Congress under 
the constitution he was chosen a member, retaining his seat until the close of Wash- 
ington's administration, in 1797. 

In 1801, Mr. Jefferson succeeded Mr. Adams as president, and Mr. Madison had 
the pleasure of casting his vote for his illustrious friend as one of the electors. Mr. 
Jefferson immediately offered him a place in his cabinet, and he accordingly entered 
on the discharge of his duties as secretary of state, which duties he continued to 
perform during the whole of Mr. Jefferson's administration, and on the retirement 
of that great statesman he succeeded to his seat, in 1809. He held his seat during 
;he war of 1812, and brought it safely to a glorious conclusion, when he resigned 
the oceptre into the hands of Mr. Monroe. 

Mr. Madison now retired to his peaceful home in Virginia, where he passed the 
remainder of his days in otium cum dig-nitate, loved by the many, respected by all, 
until on the 28th day of June, 1826, the last survivor of the framers of our beloved 
constitution, and one of the most distinguished champions of American freedom, he 
gathered his mantle about him, and " laid down to pleasant dreams," in the full hope 
of the resurrection, and in the eighty-sixth year of his age. 




MRS. MADISON 



DOLLY PAINE was born in North Carolina, while her parents, who resided 
in, and were natives of, Virginia, were on a visit among their friends in 
that state. Her parents belonged to the sect of Quakers, and, of course, to 
Dolly's education were not added those accomplishments considered so essential to 
a fine lady — music, dancing, painting, etc., etc. Otherwise her education was 
thorough and classical. In person she was exceedingly beautiful ; but the charm 
which attracted all beholders was a winning sweetness and native grace of man- 
ners, springing from a warm heart and cheerful, hopeful spirit ; a charm which the 
frosts and troubles of seventy-five winters did nothing to impair. 

At a very early age she gave her hand to a young lawyer, of Philadelphia, by the 
name of Todd. With him she lived " in great simplicity and happiness " but a few 
years ; and, in 1794, she again entered the conjugal state, selecting, from among 
many lovers of high eminence, James Madison, then a conspicuous member of Con- 
gress from Virginia. Until 1801, when Mr. Madison was appointed Secretary of 
State under Mr. Jefferson's administration, she presided at the hospitable board of 
her distinguished husband, who kept up the ample style of living so common with 
the ancient regime of Virginia, with the most remarkable combination of simplicity 



510 MRS. MADISON 

and elegance. Mr. Madison kept open house, and his table was the constant resort 
of the elite of " the region round about," attracted as much by the delightful urban- 
ity of its mistress as the ample manner in which it was spread. 

In 1801, ]\Irs. Madison accompanied her husband to Washington, he having been 
called by Mr. Jefferson to a seat in his cabinet. The Capitol was then in a rude, 
unfinished state, and Washington itself almost a wilderness. But the society first 
called together there was composed of the very chief spirits of the land, and the 
elegant receptions and dinners of the White House were most gracefully presided 
over by the fair and ladylike mistress of that mansion. She was at home with all. 
and made herself au fait on all topics of public interest or private gossip. The 
rudest and the most refined were alike charmed by the suavity of her address, and 
hearty good will, which appeared in all she said or did. Blessed with great penetra- 
tion of character, never forgetting the address of a person to whom she had been 
once introduced, and making herself acquainted with the principal events of each 
one's life, she had the faculty of making every one not only feel at ease, but think 
that she was specially interested in his personal history and affairs. 

At the close of his eight years' secretaryship, Mr. Madison was elected President 
of the United States, and removed at once to the White House, which became, 
more than ever, the centre of a brilliant circle of gay and gaUant spirits. Mrs. 
Madison, notwithstanding her demure origin and education, w^as blessed with ex- 
uberant spirits, and was a foe to dulness in any shape ; and her drawing-rooms were 
sparkling and recherche. She had the habit — " sair to say" — of taking snuff", but 
it lost all its vulgarity with her, and she made her snuff-box the altar of comity and 
good faith. " It had," says one of her biographers, " a magic influence, and seemed 
as perfect a security against hostility as the bread and salt of the Arabs." 

But the days of heavy shadows came. In 1812, war was declared against Great 
Britain ; and in 1814, Washington was sacked by the enemy. During all the hor- 
rors of those fearful days, Mrs. Madison conducted herself w^ith the utmost calmness 
and courage, and did herself great credit by her firmness and promptitude in that 
trying event. 

At the close of his sixteen years' public service, Mr. Madison returned to his moun- 
tain home in Virginia, taking w^ith him his beautiful wife, and the lamentations and 
benisons of many hearts. 

On the death of her husband, Mrs. Madison divided her time between her home 
in Virginia and the Capital. She retained her brilliant mind and suavity of man- 
ners to extreme old age, and was the centre of one of the most refined circles that 
could be found in American society. 




HON. JOHN J. CRITTENDEN 



JOHN J, CRITTENDEN, an eminent Kentucky lawyer and able statesman, 
was born about the year 1790. He studied law and opened an office in Frank- 
fort, where he speedily rose to a high position in his profession. His uncommon 
talents, and the ease and fluency of his public address, made him a popular man 
with his party, while his sound judgment and powers of close, cogent arguments, 
marked him as a growing lawyer and budding statesman. 

Mr. Crittenden commenced his political career in the Senate of the United States, 
naving been elected by the whig party to a seat in that body in the autumn of 1817. 
After two years' service he retired to Frankfort, and for the space of sixteen years 
devoted himself to the duties of his profession. Such was his assiduity, and such 
were the peculiar qualifications with which nature had endowed him, that he rose to 
the highest rank as a lawyer, and was retained on all the most difficult and abstruse 
legal questions which came before the courts of Kentucky. During this period he 
occasionally served in the legislature of Kentucky, having been elected by large 
majorities. 

In 1835, he was once more called into public life, by an election to the Senate of 
the United States, from which time until the present he has continued to serve his 



512 



HON JOHN J. CRITTENDEN. 



country in various public capacities. He o<''ti]>ied his seat in the Senate for six 
years, and the records of that body give abundant testimony to his diligence and 
ability, and the high respect with which his dignified senatorial course inspired his 
coUeao-ues. His legal knowledge enabled him to discharge, with eminent success, 
the duties which devolved upon him as chairman of several important committees. 

In 1841, after one of the most exciting political campaigns the country ever wit- 
nessed. General Harrison was elected to the presidency by a most overwhelming 
majority. On the formation of his cabinet, he invited Mr. Crittenden to fill the 
office of attorney general — an office for which he was preeminently fitted, but in 
the duties of which he had no opportunity to display his uncommon powers. In 
one brief month, the old soldier yielded the robes of office at the command of the 
kin<y of terrors, and they fell on the shoulders of John Tyler. This change of dy- 
nasty resulted in the breaking up of the Harrison cabinet, all its members, excepting 
the secretary of state, the late Hon. Daniel Webster, resigning their seats. 

Mr. Crittenden again retired to private life, from which he was called once more, 
in 1842, to occupy his old seat in the United States Senate, for the balance of an 
unfinished term. In 1843, he was reelected a senator for the next six years succeed- 
ing. He did not, however, serve out his full time, for in 1848 he was put in nomi- 
nation for the office of governor of Kentucky, when he resigned his seat in the 
Senate, and accepted the nomination. He was elected to the office by a triumphant 
majority, and held it until the accession of Mr. Fillmore to the office of President of 
the United States, in 1849, when he was called by that gentleman to fill a place in 
his cabinet, and entered immediately upon the discharge of his duties, as attorney 
general of the United States. This office he retained throughout the administration 
of Mr. Fillmore, discharging its duties with a fidelity and ability alike honorable to 
himself and the government he helped to administer. 

The triumph of the democracy in the nearly unanimous election of their favorite 
candidate, General Frank Pierce, to the presidency, will probably put the veto on 
the public service of Mr. Crittenden in any other capacity than that of a member 
of Congress. He carries with him into private life the respect of all his countrymen, 
and the entire confidence and gratitude of the party which he has so long and so 
faithfully served. 




^»/ 



GENERAL SANTA ANNA. c....;iU,^ 



FEW living men have had so varied an experience as the present emperor of 
Mexico, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, He was born in Mexico in the 
year 1795-6, and came first into public notice in 1821 ; in which year he was ap- 
pointed to a high military command in the republican army, and aided in driving the 
royalists from the city of Vera Cruz, He was immediately appointed to the com- 
mand of the city, from which he was deposed the following year. Raising the re- 
publican standard, he rallied an army, which he led against the royal forces under the 
immediate command of king Iturbide, whom he overthrew. 

The towering ambition of Santa Anna had already began to develop itself; anrl 
not realizing the splendid schemes he had prepared, he joined the federalists, but was 
signally defeated in a pitched battle. He then retired to his seat near the city of 
Jalapa, where he remained in comparative obscurity until Guerrero put himself for- 
ward as a candidate for the presidency of the new republic in 1828, By the aid of 
Santa Anna's counsels, supported with his sword, his election was secured, and he 
at once placed the general in full command of the forces of the republic. In 1830, 
he supported the cause of Pedrazza against Bustamente, and succeeded in defecting 



514 ' GENERAL SANTA ANNA. 

the army of the latter, and placing Pediazza in the presidential chair, who maintained 
liis supremacy until the election in March, 1833, when himself succeeded to that 
high honor and became the president of the Mexican republic. 

But Santa Anna was never a favorite with the people. His fluctuating course had 
marked the demagogiie, and he met with a marked opposition. Arista and D'Arran 
took up arms against him, but suffered defeat. In 1835, four provinces rebelled, and 
were led against his army by Lacatecos, who had been appointed the leader of the 
reform party, as they called themselves. They were, however, utterly overthrown ; 
and once more the ambitious hopes of the president seemed to be realized. He pro- 
claimed himself dictator, and proceeded to severities against his enemies, who fled 
the country ; and, having established a government at Texas, proclaimed their inde- 
pendence — calling on Santa Anna to acknowledge the same. In reply he led an 
army against the insurgents ; and, after a most ridiculous campaign, suffered an ig- 
noble defeat, and fell into the hands of his enemies with his whole army. He was 
now fain to acknowledge the claims of the new republic, on which he was released. 

In 1838, Santa Anna aided in the defence of Vera Cruz against the French, in 
which service he lost a leg. In 1841, he was once more elevated to power, and was 
president for four years, when another political tornado overthrew his seat of power 
and hurled him to the dust. But the distracted state of the country soon recalled 
him to power ; for his was the only hand that could hold sway amidst the conflicting 
interests of the several parties M^hich claimed to direct the government of poor, 
crushed, and despoiled Mexico. 

Early in 1846, the army of the United States invaded Mexico, under command of 
general Taylor. Santa Anna immediately led the armies of Mexico, twenty thousand 
strong, against the approaching invaders, whose numbers were less than one quarter 
of that of his own. They met at Buena Vista, and the result was the utter destruc- 
tion of the Mexican army. On this the senate deposed him from his command ; but 
on the taking of Vera Cruz by the American troops under Scott, and their threatening 
approach to the capital, he was once more placed in command, and once more suf- 
fered defeat at Cerro Gordo. 

At the capital D'Arran had been placed in the presidential chair; but as the vic- 
torious troops of their enemy approached the city of Mexico, the fickle populace re- 
called Santa Anna to the seat of power. But nothing could stay the steady progress 
of the American arms, and the capital soon fell into the hands of general Scott. A 
treaty of peace followed, by which the golden region of California was ceded to the 
United States ; and Santa Anna, now in the descending scale of favor, fled to Ja- 
maica, whence, after a residence of a few months, he proceeded to Carthagena and 
engaged in business. In 1851, however, the unstable elements of Mexican politics 
requiring his strong guidance, he was once more recalled to the presidential chair, and 
during the last year he has proclaimed himself and been acknowledged by the Mex- 
ican people supreme dictator. The course of this great man is a remarkable one, and 
its conclusion is yet to be wiitten. 




MRS. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. 



LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY was born in Norwich, in the state of Con- 
necticjut, in the year 1791. Her father, whose name was Huntley, belonged to 
the middle class of society ; and she, being an only child, was reared with all the 
care that parental tenderness could suggest. Exhibiting in early life striking indica- 
tions of poetic genius, her parents encouraged the precocious buddings of her young 
soul, and taught her to expand her Muse's wings to higher and higher flights in the 
regions of poetry, so that she produced a number of respectable poems before she had 
reached maturity. She was also very fortunate in finding a noble and judiciou? 
patron and friend in an eminent scholar and gentleman of high standing in Hartford 
Connecticut, and to whom she was ever ready to make her acknowledgments as in 
duty bound. By his advice she gave her first work to the press in 1815, entitled 
" Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose and Verse." 

In 1819, Miss Huntley gave her hand in marriage to Mr. Charles Sigourney, a re- 
spectable merchant of the city of Hartford, a gentleman also of some literary tastes, 
and who encouraged her in gratifying her predilection for literary pursuits. From 
that time to the present, with a few intervals, she has devoted her time and talents to 

32 



516 



MRS. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. 



the edification and instruction of the pnblic mind with the productions of her pen, 
which have now increased to a large number of volumes, and are more generaUy read 
than any other works of a similar kind coming from an American female pen. 

As a woman, Mrs. Sigourney has filled the various relations of life with great 
fidelity and dignity. Affectionate, amiable, judicious, and constant, she has attached 
to herself a large circle of admiring friends. 

In 1840, Mrs. Sigourney visited Europe ; spending her winter in France, and her 
summer in England. Wherever she went she was received with the most flattering 
attentions, and made the acquaintance of many of the savans of the old world. 
Wliile at London a superb volume of her selected productions made its appearance 
on the bookshelves of the publishers, and was eagerly sought for and read by her 
admirers in that realm. She has been severely criticized by some of the English re- 
viewers, and accused of a base and servile imitation of their Mrs. Hemans. We 
think this charge unjust; and while we would not claim for her an equal eminence 
with the great English poetess, we think that she does not fall a great way behind, 
and "manages language," to use the words of another, "with ease and elegance, 
and often with much of the curiosa felicitas, that 'refined felicity' of expression, 
which is, after all, the principal charm in poetry. In blank verse she is very success- 
ful. The poems that she has written in this measure have not unfrequently much of 
the manner of Wordsworth, and may be nearly or quite as highly relished by his 
admirers." 

Besides her first pubfished volume in 1815, above noticed, Mi's. Sigourney gave to 
the world, previous to her visit to Europe, the following works, viz. : " Traits of the 
Aborigines of America," in 1822 ; " A Sketch of Connecticut Forty Years since," in 
1824; "Poetry for Children;" "Sketches, a Collection of Prose Tales;" "Poems;" 
" Zinzendorf ; " "Letters to Young Ladies;" "Letters to Mothers;" and several 
minor pieces. 

From her European visit Mrs. Sigourney returned to her home in Hartford, in 
1841 ; soon after which she published " Pocahontas " — perhaps the most finished of 
all her productions. In 1842, she published her impressions of her visit to the old 
world, in prose and verse, with the title of " Pleasant Memories in Pleasant Lands." 
In 1846, she sent forth " Myrtis, with other Etchings and Sketchings ; " and two 
years after a large volume of her poems, selected and revised by herself, and beauti- 
fully illustrated. Besides the above, she has been a regular contributor to several 
journals and magazines, and has written whole volumes of "occasional" pieces of 
a sacred, elegiac, or triumphal character. 




REV. DR. SHARP. 



DANIEL SHARP was born at Hudderslield, in Yorkshire, England, on the 
25th of December, 1784. His parents were very pious, and took great pains to 
give early religious instruction to their son. As soon as he was old enough he en- 
tered the counting room of an extensive business house in Yorkshu-e, and by his 
assiduity and fidelity so won the confidence of his employers that as soon as he 
arrived at his majority he was appointed their factor in the United States, and ar- 
rived at New York soon after. He entered at once upon the duties of his agency, 
which he most faithfully discharged. 

Some years before his emigration Mr. Sharp had made a profession of religion and 
united himself to a Presbyterian church, but, changing his opinions soon after, he be- 
came a Baptist. On his arrival in New York he joined a Baptist church under charge 
of Rev. Mr. Williams. His extreme probity and the entire correctness of his life, to- 
gether with the deep seriousness of his demeanor, attracted the attention of some of 
the leading Baptists in the city, and he was by them induced to quit the business in 
which he was engaged and enter upon a course of theological studies preparatory to 
assuming orders. This was perfectly in harmony with his own feeUngs and con- 



518 REV DR. SHARP. 

firmed by his own judgment ; so he asked and obtained an honorable dismissal from 
his employers, and entered the study of Rev. Dr. Staughton, of Philadelphia. 

Having completed his studies, Mr. Sharp commenced the duties of a preacher; and, 
after having supplied several pulpits, was invited to take charge of the Baptist church 
and society at Newark, New Jersey, and received ordination on the 17th of May, 
1809. In the course of the following year he visited Boston, and supplied for a short 
time the pulpit of the Charles street church, then under the pastoral care of Rev. 
Caleb Blood, but who soon after resigned his oversight of that church. He was then 
invited to succeed Mr. Blood, but declined the invitation. When, however, the call 
was renewed the year following, he accepted it, and was installed on the 29th of 
April, 1812. 

The influence of Dr. Sharp was soon felt ; and it was not long before he became a 
leading man in his denomination, not only in Boston, but throughout New England. 
He entered heart and soul into all the benevolent and religious measures of that body. 
He did not confine his sympathies, however, to his Baptist brethren. His was a large 
and noble heart, and embraced every good word and work without stopping to ask 
the sectarian question, " Is this our measure ? " He became an active member of the 
" Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Society," and ever took a deep interest in every 
measure connected with the great objects of that association. He also became as- 
sociated editor of the American Baptist Magazine, and had a large share in its over- 
sight for several years. 

When the news reached Boston from Calcutta that Messrs. Judson and Rice, who 
had been sent out as missionaries under the patronage of the Congregationalists, had 
changed their views and adopted the belief in immersion baptism, Mr. Sharp was 
among the foremost to meet the exigencies of the case, and took the lead in the 
formation of a society " for the propagation of the gospel in India." As its secre- 
tary, he conducted the correspondence. When the general convention of the Baptist 
denomination in the United States was formed in Philadelphia, April, 1814, he en- 
tered cordially and earnestly into its plans, and almost from the beginning was one 
of its officers. For many years he was the president of its acting board, and gave 
to its operations much time, thought, and labor. After the name of the organization 
was changed he was elected the first president of the American Baptist Missionary 
Union. 

" In 1814, he was one of the originators of an association which after^vards grew 
into the Northern Baptist Education Society. He was ever the earnest and liberal 
friend of ministerial education of the highest order. With the origin and history of 
the Newton Theological Institution he was closely identified, and for eighteen years 
he was the president of its board of trustees." 

He was a fellow of Brown university, from which institution, in 1811, he received 
the honorary degree of master of arts, and, in 1828, that of doctor of divinity. The 
latter honor was also conferred upon him, in 1843, by Harvard university, of whose 
board of overseers he was a long time a member. 

In 1853 his health failed rapidly, and he made a journey to the south, seeking its 
renovation. But the seal had been set by Providence, and he gave up the ghost in 
perfect triumph, at Stoneley, Maryland, on the 23d of June, 1853, at the age of 
sixty-nine, mourned as few are mourned, for he had made friends of all good and 
Christian men. 




KEOKUCK. 



KE-O-KUCK, or the ^'Running Fox," a powerful chief of the Sac and Fox 
Indians, was born at the very commencement of the present century. He early 
gave indications of his shrewdness and courage, — the traits of Indian character 
most in esteem in his tribe, — and while he was a mere youth he had been admitted 
to the more manly sports and dances for which no mere pappoose is esteemed fit. 

On the breaking out of the Black Hawk war, Keokuck was a subordinate chief 
under that renowned warrior, and showed himself a brave and careful soldier. He 
aided, both by his counsels and his prowess in battle, to shorten that cruel and 
bloody war. He had been also secretly influential in keeping a large body of sav- 
ages neutral during the war. He was among the earliest to acknowledge his error, 
and afterward became a friend of the white man, and did all in his power to bring 
about a fair and honorable peace. 

When Black Hawk and the Prophet were taken prisoners, General Harrison, who 
had experienced the duplicity and treachery of these malignant chiefs in many ways, 
and had lost all confidence in their promises, desirous of negotiating terms of recon- 
ciliation with some competent person among the tribes of hostile Indians, at once 
deposed Black Hawk, and raised Keokuck to his place ; and it is but justice to this 



520 KEOKUCK 

chief to say, that he maintained the terms of the convention inviolate himself, and 
did what he could to enforce it among the warriors of his tribe. That treaty, the 
most important that the Americans had ever made with the Indians, was a scene of 
great interest. The subtle and dignified Keokuck was the principal speaker on the 
occasion, while the dethroned and degraded Black Hawk stood upon the out- 
side of the circle, dressed in an old brown surtout and a browner hat, with a cane 
in his hand, not allowed to speak one word, or to sign the treaty, even, when it was 
concluded. By his side stood the Prophet and his principal aid-de-camp, Nah-pope, 
in scowling silence and painful submission. Nah-pope did indeed essay a word or 
two ; but on the rising of Keokuck, " with a face that the devil himself might have 
shrunk from," he took his place once more beside his humble chief, and held his 
peace until the close of the convention. 

After peace was made with the Indians. Keokuck, together with Black Hawk, the 
Prophet, and some twenty others of the most powerful chiefs among them, visited 
the principal cities of the Union, exhibiting themselves in their degradation to the 
people who had for years been horrified with accounts of their bloody deeds. It 
was, perhaps, necessary, — although there is ground to doubt even that, — but it was 
a cruel and shameful exhibition of these fallen princes. But it had its effect. Their 
humiliation was complete, and the page of American history will hereafter be free 
from those red records of midnight conflagrations and hellish murders. 

On the return of Keokuck to his native wilds, he, in company with his tribe, mi- 
grated to the west side of the Mississippi, and established his village on the Des 
Moines River, about seventy-five miles from its mouth. Here he held his court 
when Catlin visited his village, in 1835. He sustained his rank among his fallen 
braves with the same ceremony and grandeur as ever, but still under the restraint of 
tlie power of his white foes, the open mouths of whose cannon were continually 
admonishing him that he held his regal court only on condition of good behavior. 

" I found Keokuck," says Catlin, " to be a chief of fine and portly figure, with a 
good countenance, and great dignity and grace in his manners. He is a man of a 
great deal of pride, and makes truly a splendid appearance when mounted on his 
beautiful black war horse." Catlin painted him in this guise, as well as full length 
on foot. He was very proud of the picture, and excessively vain of his own ap- 
pearance 




JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 



THERE is not an American name more extensively known throughout the civil- 
ized world, nor one for which a higher respect is cherished among men of 
learning and science, than that of the distinguished ornithologist, Audubon, whose 
birth occurred on the 4th of May, 1780, in the city of New Orleans. His parents 
were French, and, being blessed w^ith the means, sent their boy to Paris to acquire 
his education in the best schools of that gay metropolis. After spending eight or 
ten years abroad, he returned to his native country, as the proper field in which to 
pursue those studies for which he had already acquired an overmastering passion. 

Ornithology and entomology had early attracted the attention of young Audubon, 
and before he returned to America he had made considerable proficiency in these 
sciences, although the field of his observations was extremely narrow and unsatis- 
factory ; but now his scope was unbounded and the material ample, and he resolved 
to give it a thorough investigation. As soon as he could put himself in a state ot 
readiness, he commenced those indefatigable and hazardous labors which ended only 
with his life, and which have crowned his name with an imperishable halo of glory. 

Audubon was one of the earliest pioneers of the great west, and with his huge knap- 
sack on his back, and his rifle, and net, and snares in his hand, he made the longes 



522 JOHN JAMES AUDUBO'N 

journeys across the broad prairies, and through the tangled forests of the wide bot- 
toms, counting no labor lost, and no hardship of any account, so that he could bag 
a new bird or insect. As early as 1810, we find him sailing down the upper Missis- 
sippi in a birch canoe, with his wife and one child, who shared his perils and his joy. 
" From that period his career was one of adventure, romantic incident, and varied 
fortune. Hardly a region in the United States was left unvisited by his presence ; 
and the most inaccessible haunts of Nature were disturbed by this adventurous and 
indefatigable ornithologist, to whom a new discovery or a fresh experience was only 
the incentive to greater ardor, and further efforts in his favorite department of 
science." 

It was many years subsequent to this period that Audubon conceived the noble 
project of giving to the world a perfect history of all the feathered race in the 
United States. His project was on a scale commensurate with the magnificence of 
the subject, and was not completed until after a quarter of a century's hard labor. 
"Without funds, and with but the promise of some small patronage, he set himself 
to this great work of his life with more zeal and cheerfulness than he would have 
done to the acquisition of a fortune — counting no labor too much, and no pains or 
cost too great, so that he might gain one step in his great purpose. Those whose 
good fortune it was to become acquainted with him at this time describe him as a 
man of marked appearance, original in his character, of childlike demeanor, entirely 
free from that savageness of manner so natural to one whose days are spent in the 
wilderness. Yet there was a fire in his piercing eye, and a spirit in his striking brow 
and erect mien, which evinced an unconquerable energy of purpose, and gave war- 
rant of success in all the great plans of his life. 

At length "The Birds of America" was completed. The elegance of the en- 
graving, the richness and delicacy, as well as the lifelikeness, of the coloring, took 
the world by surprise, and forever established the fame of Audubon as the great 
American Ornithologist 

For the last ten or twelve years Audubon reposed upon his laurels, and in his quiet 
little home, near the city of New York, enjoyed the only repose of his life. Satisfied 
to have around him a few choice spirits, he did not mingle much in society, and to 
the world he has been known only through the results of his labors. Here he died 
in peace on the 27th of January, 1851, aged seventy-one years. 




MAJOR GENERAL SAMUEL HOUSTON. 



TTIHIS brave but somewhat eccentric man was born in Rockbridge county, Vir- 
JL ginia, on the 2d day of March, 1793. When he was very young he lost his 
father, and he with his mother removed to the then outmost borders of civihzation, 
and settled on the banks of the Tennessee River, where his education was almost 
entirely neglected, and he grew up a wild youth, associating with the young savages 
of his neighborhood. He became very much attached to the Indian mode of living, 
a liking which seems never to have deserted him. He tried his hand at bookkeep- 
ing in a store in the neighborhood of his home, but not liking a trader's life, he com- 
menced the duties of a pedagogue. At length, becoming disgusted with the ferule 
as he had previously with the pen, he enlisted in the army, in 1813, and served under 
the immediate eye of General Jackson to the close of the war, receiving an honor- 
able discharge, with the commission of lieutenant, having distinguished himself for 
his bravery and good soldiership on several occasions. 

On leaving the army he studied law, and soon entered into tlie political arena of 
his country, where he has figured until the present day. His congressional career 
commenced in 1823, when he became a member of the House- of Representatives. 
He held his seat in that body until he was elected governor of the State of Tennessee, 
in 1827, holding that office for two years. 33 



524 MAJOR GENERAL SAMUEL HOUSTON 

About this time Governor Houston, from some unaccountable motives, left the 
society of civilized life and took up his abode with his savage friends, with whom 
he spent several years ; during which time, detecting the numerous deceptions prac- 
tised upon the ignorant Indians by the agents of the United States, he took the 
matter ii? hand, determining to obtain redress for the wrongs inflicted on the red 
men. For this purpose he went to \\ ashington, and labored diligently to forward 
the object of his mission. But his benevolent eftbrts were without success, and he 
became involved in several vexatious and expensive lawsuits. Baffled in his disin- 
terested purposes, he returned again to the wilds of Arkansas, and took up his abode 
with his Cherokee friends. 

At this time the people of Texas were striving for their liberty, and during an 
accidental visit to that territory he was earnestly solicited to suffer his name to be 
used as a member of a convention about to be called to form a constitution for a 
new state, to be admitted to the Mexican republic. Having been unanimously 
elected, he became exceedingly influential in conducting the debates of the conven- 
tion, and all the subsequent action growing out of it. Santa Anna, then President 
of the Mexican republic, not liking the free spirit of the constitution offered for his 
acceptance, refused to acknowledge it, and demanded that the Texans snould de- 
liver up all their arms, and acknowledge fealty to the Mexican republic. The result 
was an appeal to arms, which was followed by one of the most remarkable struggles 
on the record of war, in which the battle fields of Goliad and Alamo are everlasting 
and blood-red monuments of the gallantry and sufferings of the Texans, and the 
treachery and cruelty of the Mexicans. 

At the opening of this war. General Austin held command of the Texan forces, 
which command soon devolved on General Houston, by whose indomitable courage 
and unsurpassed military sagacity the broken legions of Texas were recruited and 
kept together until victory dawned on their arms at San Jacinto, when the whole 
Mexican army, with the treacherous Santa Anna at its head, fell into the hands 
of the Texans. The results of this battle were several hundred slain among the 
Mexicans, while Houston's loss was only seven killed and thirty wounded. 

Thus caught in the toils of his foes, Santa Anna was fain to grant their demands, 
and in May, 1836, he signed a treaty of peace, ackhowledging the independence of 
Texas. The news of the ratification of the treaty diffused universal joy, and on 
the organization of the government in October of the same year, the grateful Texans 
unanimously elected General Houston to be its first president. 

By the terms of the constitution, no man could be elected to that high office twice 
in succession ; and at the close of his official term, General Houston was chosen a 
member of Congress. Again, in 1841, he w^as elected to the presidential chair. In 
1844, Texas was received into the American Union, and he was immediately elected 
to a seat in the United States Senate, which seat he has occupied until the present 
time. His age is now about sixty, and his name has several times been used in con- 
nection with the presidency. 




CHAHLES EAVING, LL. D. 



THE character of Judge Ewing is one we delight to contemplate — the world is 
better for having produced such a man, and every one is better for having 
meditated upon his pure and useful life. His childish docility was only the proph- 
ecy of the judge upon the bench — a docility which was as true to goodness as the 
needle to the pole. Observant of every duty, he strove to do what was plainly right, 
and, with a firmness surprising in a mere child, resisting the temptations of others 
who would entice him into wrong. Together with an ardent thirst for knowledge, 
he had an innate love of all beautiful sights and sounds. As he grew up these traits 
only strengthened, until he became remarkable for his knowledge in the abstruse 
literature of books, and the pure and constant communion he held with nature and 
his own choice circle of friends. Still he was no recluse or misanthrope. He took 
a lively interest in the business and politics of the busy world about him, although 
he mingled but little in their dusty bustle and turmoil. He also felt a deep sym- 
pathy for every sorrowing and oppressed son or daughter of hvimanity ; and his 
words and his alms went together in one stream of comfort to their stricken hearts, 
to the utmost of his ability. Better than all these. Judge Ewing was a Christian ; 
a consistent and devout Christian, reverencing his Maker and obeying his divine 



526 CHARLES EVVING, LL. D. 

Master in a conscientious spirit. Decided in his own views, he was no bigot, and 
allowed to all his brethren the right he claimed for himself — the right to think and 
believe for himself as he read the record of divine truth. His home was the centre 
and magnet of his affections, and here he opened his heart and revealed his life as 
he did nowhere else. H'* was a good man ; and while he lived his acquaintances 
and his friends rose up and called him blessed, and when he died mourning filled 
the city where he dwelt. 

Charles Ewing, the only child of James Ewing, a man high in authority and 
the affections of his fellow-citizens, was born in Burlington county, New Jersey, on 
the 8th of July, 1780. He was prepared for his collegiate course at the academy 
at Trenton, and entered New Jersey college in advance, at the age of sixteen. Two 
years after, he was graduated in a class containing several of the most distinguished 
men of that state, and carried off the highest honors his alma mater had to confer. 

Deciding on the law, Mr. Ewing thoroughly prepared himself for its practice, and 
received his license in 1802. He at once opened an office in Trenton, the capital of 
New Jersey, and commenced that career alike so honorable to himself and the state 
which gave him birth. 

In 1805, he was admitted a counsellor, and as an evidence of his high qualifica- 
tions for the duties of his profession, in the short space of seven years he was ap- 
pointed to the responsible and honorable station of serjeant. 

In 1824, he was appointed chief justice of the State of New Jersey, which office 
he held until his death. This was an office for which he was admirably fitted, and 
was particularly suited to his tastes. He had often declined the urgent requests of his 
friends to allow his name to be used in the political canvasses of the day, content 
and well pleased with the legilimate result of the path he had chosen. As a judge 
he was dignified, cool, and sagacious, searching patiently into all the ends of justice, 
and came to his decisions with an entire consciousness that they were "in accord- 
ance with the law and evidence." 

He died on the 5th of August, 1832, one of the earliest victims of cholera, in the 
fifty-third year of his age. 




NATHANIEL BOWDITCH, LL. D. 



rilHIS remarkable and most excellent man was born in Salem, Massachusetts, 
J- oil the 26th of March, 1773. His father, as well as his ancestors for several 
generations, were shipmasters, celebrated for being good navigators and business 
men. His father was poor in worldly gear, and his early education was obtained 
altogether at the common schools in his native town, which at that time held the 
highest rank in the commercial cities of the Union. AVhen he was thirteen, his 
father apprenticed him to a ship chandler. Here, faithfully discharging his duties, he 
remained until he became of age. While an apprentice he eagerly devoured all 
books which fell in his way. He had a particular delight for the science of mathe- 
matics, and devoted much of his spare time in reading such works as could en- 
lighten him on this abstruse subject. 

Having long cherished a predilection for the sea, at the age of twenty-two Mr. 
Bowditch embarked in the capacity of captain's clerk on a voyage to the East In- 
dies. At once he turned his strong mind to the subject of navigation, and com- 
menced those reflections and observations which resulted, in 1802, in the publication 
of his ^'■Practical JVavig-ator,''^ a work too well known to need our comment. He 
followed the seas for nine years, rising from captain's clerk to supercargo, then to 
master, making most of his voyages to the East Indies. 



528 NATHANIEL BOWDITCII, LL. D. 

By this time Captain Bowditch had established his reputation as a shrewd and 
careful man of business ; and, in 1804, he was chosen president of a marine insur- 
ance company in Salem, the duties of which he discharged for nearly twenty years, 
when he was called to preside over the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Com- 
pany, an institution just incorporated with a large capital, and requiring the extraor- 
dinary talents which he alone could bring to the work. In the discharge of the 
highly responsible duties of this office he continued until the day of his death. 

Few men have surpassed Dr. Bowditch in his untiring pursuit of knowledge. 
Simple in his niode of life, his choicest recreations were the solving of the most 
difficult mathematical problems, and an occasional meeting of his familiar friends in 
the simple and elegant enjoyment of social pleasures. Limited as were the means 
of his early education, "yet, by his extraordinary genius, and his almost equally 
extraordinary economy of time, he made great acquisitions in learning and science ; 
gained a knowledge of the Latin, Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and 
German languages ; made himself the most eminent mathematician and astronomer 
that America has produced; and did more for the reputation of his country among 
men of science abroad than has been done by any other man, except, perhaps. Dr. 
Franklin." 

After the publication of his "Practical Navigator," in 1802, he devoted himself 
to the great work of his life, and by which he has raised his name to the highest 
niche of scientific fame — we mean his translation and commentary of the " ilfe- 
canique Celeste'' of La Place. This was a work of immense labor, and the depth, 
clearness, and profundity of his "Commentary" deservedly rank him among the 
most learned of any age or country. It consists of four large quarto volumes, 
printed in the most elegant style of letter-press, and freely illustrated with clear and 
spirited drawings. This he published at his own expense, because it would be a 
work so few could afford to pay for ; remarking, that he would rather pay a thousand 
dollars a year than to ride in his carriage, that he might be able to complete it. 
The first volume was published in 1829, and he read the last proof sheets of the 
fourth volume only a few days before his death, which occurred at Boston on the 
IGtirof March, 1838. Several years before his death he received the degree of doc- 
tor of laws, and was admitted a fellow of the Royal Society. He likewise was 
chosen president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which station he 
held until his death. 

" Dr. Bowditch was held in high estimation throughout the learned world as a 
man of science ; and, in social life, he was regarded by his connections and friends 
with the strongest feelings of attachment. He had an ardent love for domestic en- 
joyments, and was never happier than at his own fireside, with his family and friends 
around him. He was distinguished for his strict integrity and unsullied purity of 
character; for extraordinary energy and perseverance in whatever he undertook; for 
a deportment, to an uncommon degree, unaffected and sim|)le ; for great sincerity, 
frankness, and ardor of feeling; and for the wonderful activity and rapidity of the 
movements and operations both of mind and body." 







HON. THOMAS CORWIN 



THOMAS COR WIN was born in Bourbon county, Kentucky, on the 29th of 
July, 1794. When he was four years of age his father removed to Warren 
county, Ohio, where the senior Corwin attained to a highly resjsectable position, and 
was for a long time an active and efficient member of the Ohio legislature, over 
the upper branch of which he presided for several years with great dignity and ac- 
ceptance. His situation in life was such that he could bestow but little attention 
on his son, and he grew up without any great culture of his intellect, except such 
as he derived from the active duties of life and intercourse with the outward world. 
But being possessed of a quick and intuitive perception of the fitness of things, he 
drew such lessons from his experience as admirably fitted him for the prominent 
part he was destined to act in the great drama of life. 

When he found himself approaching manhood, he made great exertions to remedy 
the deficiency of his early education. He studied diligently, and soon acquired a 
sufficient knowledge of the classics to warrant his decision to acquire a profession. 
Selecting the law, he underwent the ordinary preparation of a clerkship, and opened 
an oflSce in Warren county, where he found plenty of work, and made many friends. 

The strong points in Mr. Corwin's character are courage, honesty, energy, and 



530 HON. THOMAS CO RW IN. 

great perseverance ; and his fellow-citizens could not fail to perceive his fitness to 
manage the affairs of the neighborhood in which he resided. Accordingly, he had 
hardly reached his majority when he was sent to the state legislature. He served 
in this capacity but a short time, however, when he was called to a higher sphere of 
labor, having been elected to Congress in 1831. He continued to hold his seat in 
this body for nine years, or until 1840, during the whole time of which he was found 
to be an efficient business member, a ready and powerful debater, a steady friend of 
the whig party, and an able advocate of all its measures in the House. 

In 1840, Mr. Corwin was chosen governor of the State of Ohio, an office which 
he filled with dignity for two years. He was again a candidate for the same po- 
sition, but was defeated by Mr. Shannon, the democratic candidate, who was elected 
as his successor. 

In 1845, Mr. Corwin was elected to the upper branch of Congress, and took his 
seat in the Senate at the close of that year. While a member of that body, our 
country became involved in war with Mexico. Politicians differed widely on the 
subject of its righteousness or its policy. Mr. Corwin from the first steadily op- 
posed it as neither politic or just, and his speeches on the floor of the United States 
Senate are among the ablest and most argumentative of anv delivered on that side 
of the question. 

Mr. Corwin continued to hold his seat in the Senate until the accession of jNIr. 
Fillmore to the presidency in 1850, when that gentleman called him to aid the 
executive administration by his counsel and advice, and appointed him to preside 
over the treasury of the country. 

As Mr. Corwin is not yet sixty years ot age, he has, doubtless, quite a career be- 
fore him. To whatever responsible situation he may be called, his past life and high 
character for probity and virtue give assurance that the duties which may be assigned 
him will be discharged with perfect fidelity and sincerity. It is pleasant to add that 
"his whole life has been one of unimpeachable virtue and stainless honor." 




MAJOR GENERAL AVORTH. 



AMONG the heroes who fought on the plains and amidst the mountains of 
Mexico, during our late conflict with that unhappy nation, there is not a 
prouder name on the list than that of Brevet Major General W. J. Worth. He 
was born in New York, in 1794. His early education was plain and rather meagre, 
and at the age of fifteen he commenced his career as clerk to a merchant in Hudson, 
New York. Three years later, on the breaking out of the war of 1812, he enlisted 
in the ranks as a private soldier. He did not long remain in that humble station. 
His skill and energy, as well as the invincible courage which even then began to 
appear, did not go unnoticed by his superiors, and he was in a short time promoted 
to a lieutenancy in the twenty-third regiment. 

His military career fairly commenced at the battle of Chippewa, where his valor 
was rewarded by the brevet of captain ; and at the sanguinary fight at Lundy's Lane, 
his sword won for him a major's commission. So rapidly did he rise, that, in two 
years after he entered the ranks as a private, we find him spurring his charger across 
the battle field, bearing the epaulet of a commissioned officer. 

On the promulgation of peace. Colonel Worth was appointed superintendent of 
the military school at West Point, which office he held until he was sent to Florida 

34 



532 MAJOR GENERAL WORTH 

to succeed General Armistead, in 1841. Meanwhile, in 1824, he had been com- 
missioned as lieutenant colonel ; in 1832, as major of ordnance ; and in 1838, as 
colonel of the eighth regiment of infantry. 

On assuming the command in Florida, Colonel Worth immediately commenced 
the most active and energetic measures. He succeeded, on the 17th of April, 1842, 
in forcing the Indians to battle at Polaklaklaba, near the St. John's River, where, 
after a most sanguinary fight, they were so thoroughly whipped, that they could 
never after be induced to meet the skilful and daring colonel in any thing like a fair 
field. In recompense for his gallantry on this occasion, he was brevetted a brigadier 
general. 

On the commencement of hostilities with Mexico, General Worth was detached 
to Corpus Christi, to join General Taylor. Dissatisfied with his relative position, he 
hastened to Washington, and resigned his commission. Meanwhile the gallant 
actions of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma had occurred, and the glorious news 
had been borne to the capitol on the wings of lightning. Stung by a sense of shame 
that he should have suffered such fair fields whereon to gather laurels to have es- 
caped him, he cancelled his resignation, and, flying back to Mexico, reached the 
army while it was investing Monterey. Dividing his army into two nearly equal 
divisions, General Taylor, leading the first, placed the other under the gallant Worth. 
They led their forces against the town in opposite directions, "Worth carrying, in 
succession, the various forts commanding the Saltillo road, storming the bishop's 
palace, which overlooked the town, and, pushing forward through the suburbs, en- 
tered the streets, throwing shot and shells, and carrying terror and dismay before 
him. He was within a short distance of the great square when the town capitulated 
to Taylor, penetrating to the plaza from the other side. For his exploits at Monte- 
rey, Worth was brevetted a major general." 

We next find Worth engaged in one of those mad exploits, which, while they 
show his invincible daring, exhibit in him that want of cool discretion, without 
which no large army can be successfully commanded. This was at Molino del Rey, 
where, by almost superhuman efforts and tremendous waste of life, he assaulted 
and successfully carried that almo'st impregnable fortress. Had he failed in this, he 
would have doubtless lost his commission for the rashness of the enterprise — but 
the brilliancy of the execution covered up the faults of the attack. He also fought 
with distinction at Cerro Gordo, at Churubusco, and at the storming of the gates 
of Mexico. He was, perhaps, after Taylor and Scott, the most efficient, certainly 
the most popular, of the generals of the war with Mexico. 

After facing ten thousand deaths in the swamps of the Seminoles and on the 
many battle fields, where blood was poured out as water, and the gallant and the 
gay fell like stricken deer on every hand, this brave officer fell a victim to cholera, at 
San Antonio de Bexar, Texas, on the 7th of May, 1849, at the age of fifty-three. 
. " The character of Worth may be sketched in few words. He was brave to a 
fault, sufficiently good as a tactician, chivalrous, of popular manners, of imposing 
presence, haughty, — at times overbearing, — impetuous, warm-hearted, and a fast 
friend. In many respects he resembled Decatur. In battle, especially where daring 
courage was required, he had no superior." 




JOHN RANDOLPH 



JOHN RANDOLPH of Roanoke, as he used to write his own name, as dis- 
tinguished for his genius and talents as for his eccentricities, was born in Vir- 
ginia, on the 2d day of June, 1773. He was descended in a direct line from the 
celebrated Indian King Powhatan, the powerful chief of all the tribes dwelling in 
southern Virginia at the time of the settlement of that state by the whites. Poca- 
hontas, whose romantic story we have already told, was the daughter of Powhatan. 
She married John Rolfe, and went with him to England. Her daughter, Jane 
Rolfe, married Robert Boiling, whose great-granddaughter was grandmother to the 
eccentric John Randolph. He used to be quite proud of the aboriginal blood which 
flowed in his veins, and often alluded to it in private conversation, and sometimes 
in his public addresses. 

At two years of age he lost his father, in 1775, from which time forward he led a 
kind of vagrant life, utterly wasting his time ; and reached his majority a wild, un- 
tamed, unlettered, and untutored youth. In 1783, his mother married again. He 
spent a few months in one institution and unde^r one tutor, which were speedily 
exchanged for another. He spent a short time at Princeton College, the greater 
part of a year at Columbia College, then a few months at William and Mary's 



534 JOHN RANDOLPH. 

College, winding up his educational career with some six months' residence in the 
law office of Edmund Randolph, in all of which places he " never learned any 
thing," if we are to believe his own account. 

Such was the preparatory education of a man who, by dint of his own genius 
and perseverance, rose to the first position as a debater in the national councils, and 
made his opinions respected and his hostility feared. " With a superficial and de- 
fective education," he declares, " I commenced a politician." He was elected to 
Congress in 1799, and continued a member of the House of Representatives, with 
the exception of three intervals of two years' each, (during one of these intervals he 
was in the United States Senate,) till 1829; and he was afterwards appointed min- 
ister plenipotentiary to Russia. 

Mr. Randolph ever remained a bachelor, and his naturally unamiable temper often 
became perfectly intolerable — becoming exceedingly abusive in debate. He pro- 
voked a duel between himself and Henry Clay, the ball of his antagonist barely 
escaping his vitals. But no man was listened to with more attentive silence in the 
House or Senate than he. His name and eloquence form a conspicuous portion of 
the history of every measure which was discussed in Congress while he was a mem- 
ber. The character of his oratory is known to every newspaper reader in the country. 

" He never spoke," says a contemporary, "without commanding the most intense 
interest. At his first gesture or word, the house and galleries were hushed into si- 
lence and attention. His voice was shrill and pipe-like, but under perfect command ; 
and, in its lower tones, it was music. His tall person, firm eye, and peculiarly 'ex- 
pressive fingers' assisted very much in giving effect to his delivery. His eloquence, 
taking its character from his unamiable disposition, was generally exerted in satire 
and invective ; but he never attempted pathos without entire success. In quickness 
of perception, accuracy of memory, liveliness of imagination, and sharpness of wit, 
he surpassed most men of his day ; but his judgment was feeble, or rarely consulted." 

He was blessed with a most tenacious memory, and every thing he had read was 
garnered up and ready for use whenever he chose to put his finger on the same. One 
of his most striking characteristics was, perhaps, his economy — which he rigidly 
practised, and, both in public and private affairs, diligently inculcated. His inherit- 
ance was inconsiderable, and heavily encumbered with a British debt; but, by a long 
course of economy, he relieved his estate, and acquired wealth. 

But with all his moroseness, Mr. Randolph was a kind master, a good neighbor, 
and a steadfast friend. At the time of his death he was possessed of a large and 
valuable estate on the Roanoke, and had three hundred and eighteen slaves, and one 
hundred and eighty horses, of which about one hundred and twenty were blood- 
horses. He died at Philadelphia, on the 24th of May, 18--»-l while on his way to 
Europe in the hope of a partial restoration to health. 




HENRY WARDSWORTH LONGPELLOW 



THIS justly celebrated American poet is the son of Hon. Stephen Longfellow, 
of Portland, Maine, and was born in that city, February 27, 1807. Under the 
eye of his father, his preparatory studies were pursued in the schools of Portland, and 
he entered Bowdoin College, in Maine, when he was only fourteen years of age. A 
decided talent at poetry manifested itself at a very early age, and previous to his 
matriculation he had written several fugitive pieces, which indicated the growing 
genius of the embryo poet. While in college he contributed some spirited poems to 
the " United States Literary Gazette." After the usual course of study, he was 
graduated with the highest honors of his class, in 1825. 

On finishing his collegiate course, Mr. Longfellow entered the law office of his 
father, where for a year or two he divided his time between the musty tomes of the 
law and the green bowers of the muses. The professorship of modern languages in 
his alma mater becoming vacant, he was called to occupy its chair, although he had 
but recently passed his majority. Accordingly he bade a cheerful adieu to the un- 
congenial study of Coke and Littleton and sailed for Europe, where he spent three 
years, dividing his time between England, France, Spain, Holland, Italy, and Ger- 
many, gathering such stores of knowledge as might fit him for the acceptable dis- 
charge of the duties of his professorship. 



536 HENRY WARDSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

In 1829, he returned home, and entered at once upon his labors. He remained an 
incumbent of the chair of modern languages in Bowdoin for the space of six years, 
during which he discharged the duties of his office with great acceptance. Amidst 
his numerous official duties he found time for the general study of literature, and 
contributed several valuable articles to the North American Review. During the 
last year of his residence at Brunswick, he published an English translation of the 
celebrated Spanish poem written by Don Jorge Manrique on the death of his father, 
to which was added an essay, full of critical beauty, on Spanish poetry. 

In 1835, the professorship of modern languages and belles lettres, in Harvard 
University, became vacant by the retirement of George Ticknor, Esq., and Mr. 
Longfellow was called to supply the vacancy. This was a high compliment, for he 
was not yet thirty, and the college at Cambridge was not accustomed to call youth 
to fill its posts of honor and instruction. Resigning his chair at Brunswick, he ac- 
cepted the trust reposed in him by the government of Harvard, and immediately 
sailed once more for Europe, where he spent one year in acquiring a more thorough 
acquaintance with the languages of Northern Europe. He visited Denmark, Swe- 
den, Switzerland, and the 'Germanic States, availing himself of the aid of the most 
eminent men in these places, and collecting a valuable library, with which he re- 
Uirned to Cambridge in the following year, and at once assumed the duties of the 
\^acant professorship, to the labors and responsibilities, the honors and emoluments, 
of which he was inaugurated in 1836. 

On the return of Mr. Longfellow from Europe, he published his " Outre Mer," a 
production on which the critics have heaped both anathema and eulogy in no 
stinted measure. Since entering upon the duties of his professorship at Cambridge, 
he has been a vigilant traveller in the fields of literature and poetry, from which he 
has culled many a choice bouquet for the admiration of his countrymen and the 
world at large. He has given many volumes to the world, several of which have 
been translated into the various living languages of Europe, and which have con- 
tributed not a little to the reputation of their author and American literature. 

In 1842, ill health requiring relaxation from the severity of his duties, Mr. Long- 
fellow made a brief voyage to Europe, where, after spending a few months, he re- 
turned with a renovated constitution to Cambridge, where he has since resided. 
He is still in the full strength of manhood, and we have reason to hope that some- 
thing of a more substantial character may be given to the world as the fruit of his 
mental effi)rts. 

The following is a list of his published works, besides those already mentioned : 
" Hyperion," a romance ; " Voices of the Night," a collection of poems, both pub- 
lished in 1839 ; a second collection of poems, entitled "Ballads, and other Poems," 
in 1841; "Poems on Slavery," in 1842; "The Spanish Student," a play, in 1843; 
•' The Poets and Poetry of Europe," and " The Belfry of Bruges," in 1845 ; 
•'Evangeline," in 1847; " Kavanagh, a Tale," in 1848 ; "The Seaside and Fire- 
Hde," in 1849 ; and " The Golden Legend," in 1851. 




MRS. ELIZABETH F. ELLET. 



IVyOTHING more surely indicates the mental growth of our nation than the 
1.1 astonishing increase of those persons, both male and female, who have rendered 
creditable service to literature. It is not so much that they are geniuses, who dip 
their pens in the immortal fountain and write but to startle the world with their bril- 
liant scintillations, as it is the multitude of them. And nothing more strikingly ex- 
emplifies the genius of our Institutions than this army of scribblers who hold " the 
pen of a ready writer." The glorious system of public education adopted by the 
early colonists and sustained by their children, coming with its treasures of mental 
life and health to the poorest as well as to the wealthiest, is sure to develop talent 
wherever it finds it, and which but for its fertilizing influences might have lain dor- 
mant forever. Other countries may produce men of more solid learning or brilliant 
genius, but certainly no other country produces such a number of writers in all de- 
partments of science, literature, and philosophy, as our own. 

Another peculiar trait in American literature is the number of its female writers, 
and the quality of the fruits of their pens. It is a matter of just felicitation to every 
thoughtful American, that the army of our historians, philosophers, biographers, poets, 



538 MRS. ELIZABETH F. ELLET. 

essayists, and novelists, is so largely composed of " the best half of creation." Among 
these the subject of this sketch deserves a niche in our "gallery of eminent persons," 
on account of the deep heroism and pure morality of the effusions of her pen. She 
has written in almost every branch of literature, but never a word to cause her coun- 
trymen a blush, save the glow of pride arising from the recollection that she was an 
American. 

Elizabeth F. Lummis is the daughter of Dr. William A. Lummis, a distinguished 
physician and medical professor in several of our large colleges. She was born at 
the small town of Sodus, near lake Ontario, in the state of New York. Her vivacity 
of manners and precocity of intellect were among the distinguishable traits of her 
early life. She improved the opportunities of her childhood with great zeal and 
fidelity, and laid the foundation for that scope of intellect which so distinguishes her 
writings in hev comparatively riper years. She began very early to compose in verse 
and prose, and some of the productions of her pen while yet a child would do credit 
to a much riper age and experience. 

Before she was seventeen years of age. Miss Lummis gave her hand in marriage 
to Dr. William H. Ellet, then professor of chemistry in Columbia college, in the city 
of New York. Here a new field of observation opened before her ; and she was called 
to mingle with the finest society in America, to which she brought the charms of a 
refined address and a highly cultivated mind. Her means of improvement were also 
largely multiplied, and she gave herself anew to the pursuit of those studies which 
should fit her for her appropriate sphere of duty. 

In 1833, Mrs. Ellet gave her first poem to the world through the columns of the 
" Ladies' Magazine," published in Boston, under the editorial care of Mrs. Sarah J. 
Hale. From this time until the present she has contributed largely to the various 
literary magazines, and sent to the press several large works on various subjects. 
Her " Women of the Revolution," published in 1848, and her " Domestic History of 
the Revolution," published in 1850, are the most important of her labors, and do her 
great credit. She holds a graphic and discriminating pen, which is never dipped in 
bitterness or in the fount of impurity. 

Her husband having received a call to the chair of chemistry and natural philos- 
ophy in the South Carolina college, at tbe city of Columbia in that state, she accom- 
panied him thither ; and, after a residence of a few years, returned again to the city r f 
New York, where she at present resides, exerting through a wide circle a most genial 
influence, and still fitting herself to shine in higher walks of literature than any she has 
hitherto tried. She is the centre of a gifted circle, and is endowed with all the graces 
that give polish and grace to a refined society. Still in the heyday of life, it is to 
be hoped that literature will receive additions worthy of Ihc promise of the past and 
the growing ripeness of her understanding and her heart. 




DR. WRIGHT POST. 



W 



T^RKjIIT post was bom at North Hampstead, Queen's county, Long Island. 



New York, on the 19th of February, 1766. However much it might gratify 
our readers to know something of the boyhood of this interesting man, it is out of 
our power to furnish it, beyond the assurance that he was a lad of a quiet and in- 
offensive turn of mind, and entirely free from the usual blemishes of a boyjs charac- 
ter. He was very early placed under the care of Mr. David Bailey, bv whom he was 
trained in the classics, and from whom he derived great help in the formation of his 
singularly pure and elevated character. 

In 1771, when he was only fifteen years of age, he commenced his professional 
studies under the direction of Richard Bailey, M. D., at that time one of the most 
celebrated physicians and surgeons of the city of New York. After remaining four 
years with Dr. Bailey, he went to London and became a pupil of Mr. Sheldon, a sur- 
geon and anatomist of the highest reputation. Living in the family of Mr. Sheldon, 
his zeal daily waxed stronger in the prosecution of his studies. Possessed of great 
perseverance and strict habits of application, he soon acquired that singular facility 
in th ■ use of surgical instruments for which he was so eminently celebrated while 

35 



540 • ■ D R . \V R I G H T P S T 

occupying the various high posts to wliich he was subsequently called. After spend 
ing two years in London, Dr. Post returned to the United States in the autumn of 
17S6, and immediately commenced the practice of his profession in the city of New 
Yorlc. During the following year he delivered his first course of lectures in the un- 
appropriated department of anatomy in Columbia college. These lectures were in- 
terrupted by a riotous mob, who broke into the hospital and destroyed every thing on 
which they could lay their hand. 

In 1790, Dr. Post married the daughter of his former preceptor. Dr. Bailey, who 
was at the time occupying the chair of anatomy and surgery in Columbia college. 
Two years afterwards this department was divided into two, and Dr. Bailey was ap- 
pointed to that of anatomy, while his son-in-law was elevated to the professorship of 
surgery. Sailing immediately for Europe, he visited all the gi'eat medical and sur- 
gical institutions in Great Britain and the continent, collecting, as he travelled, a 
splendid anatomical cabinet, with which he returned to America in 1793. While in 
Europe he studied, in his favorite department, in the best schools, and gathered 
knowledge from the first surgeons of the several countries he visited. 

An amicable exchange of partnership having been arranged between Dr. Bailey 
and himself, he now assumed the duties of professor of anatorhy and physiology, 
which he discharged, with constantly growing success, until the year 1813, a period 
of twenty years. During this time he performed many most difficult surgical oj:)er- 
ations, and rose to high distinction among his fellows in the use of the scalpel. 

In 1813, Dr. Post was appointed professor of anatomy and physiology in the col- 
lege of surgeons and physicians in New York, and he entered upon the discharge of 
his duties with such zeal as .to injure his health and compel him to seek its restoration 
by another voyage to Europe in 1815. The year previoiis he had received the hon- 
orary degree of doctor of medicine from this university ; and in 1816, he was chosen 
to a seat at the board of trustees to Columbia college. He also held a membership 
in the " Literary and Philosophical Society of New York," as well as of the " New 
York Historical Society." For thirty years he was a consulting surgeon of the New 
York hospital, and for many years an active member of the medical society of the 
county of New York. 

In 1821, upon the decease of Dr. Bard, president of the college of physicians and 
surgeons, Dr. Post was appointed his successor. This office he honored for five years, 
adding lustre to the college, when the growing infirmities of years and the severe 
pressure of ill health admonished him to retire from the arduous and responsible 
cares of 'office ; and he accordingly resigned all the trusts and offices he had so ably 
filled, and retired altogether from active life in the early part of the year 1826. He 
died calmly, as he had lived, on the 14th of June, 1828, in the sixty-third year of 
his aije. 




CALEB STRONG, LL. D. 



C^ALEB STRONG was bom at Northampton, in the state of Massachusetts, 
^ in the year 1741. His early education was acquired in the schools of his native 
village, where he exhibited a ready apprehension and a quick facility for acquiring 
knowledge. He entered the university at Cambridge in 1760, tmd was orraduated 
with distinguished honors in due course. 

On leaving college Mr. Strong commenced the study of the law, and after having 
served the customary clerkship he opened an office in his native village, where he 
soon became actively engaged in the duties of his profession, and was fast rising to 
eminence as a lav^'yer when the tocsin of revolution rang throughout the land. He 
immediately espoused the cause of the patriots, and took every opportunity to show 
his zeal in their cause. His pen was enlisted in behalf of liberty, and he frequently 
addressed his fellow-citizens upon the all-important subjects which commanded the 
public attention. He soon became a leader in the political movements of the day ; 
and, in 1775, was appointed one of the committee of safety and correspondence, 
which was the germ of independence, and did so much to direct and quicken the 
energies of the oppressed and struggling revolutionists. 



542 CALEB STRONG, LL. D 

In 1776, Mr. Strong was elected to the general court of Massachusetts, of which 
body he remained a member nearly through the whole of the revolutionary contest. 
Here, again, his manly influence was cast into the scale of liberty, and he was placed 
upon almost all the important committees raised to consider the exigencies of the 
times. When the convention was called to frame a constitution for the government 
of the state of Massachusetts he was elected a member of the same, and took an 
active part in all its deliberations. 

In 1781, ]Mi". Strong was offered a seat upon the bench of the supreme court ; but, 
for reasons best known to himself, he declined the honor. In 1787, when the different 
states sent their best and wisest men to the convention at Philadelphia, called for the 
purpose of framing the national constitution, he was a member of that distinguished 
body, and took an active and intelligent part in its solemn proceedings ; and when 
the convention gave the result of its deliberation to the country, he was elected a 
member of the convention called in his native state to consider its adoption. 

When the new government went into operation Mr. Strong was elected a member 
of the first United States senate, an honor to which he was entitled by his eminent 
past services, and was a post which he was perfectly qualified to fill witli credit to 
himself and honor to his country. He remained a member of this august body until 
the year 1800, when he was elected governor of his native state. In this high office 
he served with much acceptance to his party, as well as the public, for a space of 
seven consecutive years. 

In 1808 he retired from public life, and devoted himself to the business of his pro- 
fession and the pursuits of literature ; but in 1812, upon the breaking out of our dif- 
ficulties with Great Britain, he was once more called to assume the gubernatorial 
robes and dignity. For four more years, or until the close of the war, he discharged 
the duties of the executive with great dignity and skill, when he retired entirely to 
private life, full of honors, and carrying with him into retirement the respect of the 
whole community in which he had so long lived and so faithfully served. He died 
in November, 1821, having attained the eighty-first year of his age. 







RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 



pHE world has few originators, whetlier in letters, philosophy, or mechanics 
The mass never invent, or create, even among scholars and UTiters. They only 
work into new forms, and put to new uses, the ideas or creations of genius, whose 
army of pioneers is always small though select. These discoveries in the hitherto 
unexplored regions of truth are rarely appreciated, or even understood, by the gener- 
ation to which they belong. And if, in his explorations after truth, a genius chance 
to discover a principle somewhat new, and especially if it conflict with the famihar 
and conventional prevalence of the times, then does he forthwith become the laugh- 
ing stock of all the wiseacres who rule the mob, and who, with owl-like solemnity, 
pronounce every thing wild, chimerical, or ridiculous that has not the seal of the pub- 
lic sanction. 

To this small, unsupported, and mueh-abused vanguard belongs the subject of this 
memoir, and whose discoveries in the realm of metaphysical truth will not be fully 
understood until several full generations shall have added their sands to the stream 
which is constantly running through the hourglass of time. That he, like other dis- 
coverers, should sometimes exclaim Eureka, as he stumbled upon a pile of glittering 



544 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

but worthless ore, is not surprising ; but it invalidates not an iota of his real claims. 
When the Spaniards, who first explored the rich shores of the new-found world, loaded 
their homeward-bound ship with the falsely-glittering sand in which no true gold 
was found, it did not destroy the confidence of the Spanish court in the value of the 
di:<coverics of their servants under the gifted Columbus. And so, when our great 
thinkers present us with whole baskets of chaff, it should not deter us from ac- 
cepting the true wheat which they pour into our lap. Ours is the task to winnow 
out the chatr, and be thankful for the true bread which nourisheth us up unto everlast- 
ing life. 

Ralph Waldo E.mkrson was born at Boston, in Massachusetts, in 1803. His 
early life was passed in the midst of the gentlest and purest influences. His father 
vras a clergyman of more than common abilities, and his mother one of those pattern 
and beloved women of whom each generation produces but a few : his culture, there- 
fore, was of the happiest kind. The education of his childhood and early youth was 
such as the best schools and most faithful parental effort could furnish ; and at the 
age of fourteen he was matriculated at Haj-vard university, from which he was gi-ad- 
uated with distinguished honors in 1821. Consecrated by his parents to the profes- 
sion of his father, the choice coinciding with his own wishes, he studied divinity at 
the school of the prophets, at Cambridge. 

Having passed his examination, and received approbation from one of the neigh- 
boring associations, he commenced preaching, and shortly afterwards received an in- 
vitation to become colleague with the Rev. Henry Ware, Jr., pastor to a unitarian 
church and society in Boston. His career in this field was rather brief, on account 
of the views which he adopted of religious truth, and which, in the fearless spirit of 
a conscientious reformer, he hesitated not to promulgate. In consequence, a schism 
was produced between himself and his flock, and he resigned his charge and retired 
from the ministry altogether. 

Removing to the quiet and beautiful village of Concord, Massachusetts, the birth- 
place of his ancestors, he devoted himself to the examination of the grounds of his 
faith, giving to the world from time to time the results of his study and thought. 
Here he still resides, one of the most laborious thinkers and ^^Titers in this metaphys- 
ical age. Few men have WTitten more, and despite the quaint and awkward style of 
his Awitings, — w^hich ridiculously aflect the great Enghsh metaphysician Carlyle, — 
few have more admiring and instructed readers. 

In 1840, in conjunction with several literary gentlemen of similar views Avith him- 
self, Mr. Emerson commenced the publication of " The Dial," a metaphysical and 
literary magazine, which has occupied a high stand among the literary journals of the 
time. Besides the great labor bestowed on this work he has published a number of 
books, and his whole published writings would amount to several large volumes. In 
1849, he visited Europe ; and while in England delivered a series of lectures upon 
his favorite themes, which, on his return to the United States, ho redelivered to his 
countrymen, and afterwards published in a volume under the title of " Representative 
Men," As Mr. Emerson has but just reached his full and ripe maturity, should his 
life be spared we may expect large and felicitous additions to metaphysical literature 
from his affluent pen. 




JAMES MONROE. 



AMES MONROE, the fifth president of the United States, and who for a full 
_ half century served his country in nearly all her high political offices, was born in 
Westmoreland 'county, Virginia, on the 28th of April, 1758. His education was ac- 
quired at William' and Mary's college, from which institution he was graduated m 
1776. On leaving college he commenced the study of law. The sounds of war and 
battle, however, did not allow him to proceed. Fired with a desire to do somethhic 
for his country in its deep hour of need, he enlisted as a cadet in a corps then being 
organized by general Mercer. He was speedily honored with a lieutenant's commis- 
sion, and marched forthwith to the head quarters of the American army. 

This was a dark period of the revolution. We had lost no less than seven battles : 
the resources of the country seemed to be almost exhausted , discontent fiUed the 
ranks of our army; and despair was fast closing its dark folds around the hearts of 
our bravest patriots. But with all these gloomy prospects of ruin, defeat, and dis- 
grace, our bravehearted lieutenant quailed never a moment, and met the foe at Har- 
lem Heights and White Plains, and shared the perils and fatigues of the distressing 
retreat of Washington through New Jersey in 1776. He crossed the Delaware with 



54G JAMES M i\ R E . 

Washington, and with him made a successful attack on the Hessian camp at Tren- 
ton, on the morning of the 26th of December, 1776. 

This first successful issue of battle to the American cause inspired new hop,c 
among its almost dispirited friends, and awakened a doubt in the minds of Kritish 
officers and statesmen of their supremacy in the land they had usurped and defiled 
with the best blood of its sons. This successful blow was soon followed by ihe vic- 
tory our soldiers gained at the battle of Princeton ; and courage and hope were once 
more infused into the spirits of our soldiers and all classes of society. In the battle 
of Trenton young Monroe received a musket ba'l in the shoulder, notwithstanding 
which he "fought out the fight" gallantly and vafiantly. 

Being promoted to a captaincy, Monroe was invited by lord Stirling to act as one 
of his aids, with the title of major. In this capacity he saw much hard service; and 
for the two following campaigns was engaged in almost every conflict with the 
enemy. At Brandy^vine he took an active share, and rendered conspicuous service 
in the bloody fight at Germantown. At the battle of Monmouth, also, he was en- 
gaged, and displayed great gallantry and cool daring. 

Dissatisfied with the inferior situation of an aid, he aspired to a separate command. 
Having sought and obtained permission of the commander-in-chief to raise a regi- 
ment in his native state, he left the army and went to Virginia for this purpose. But 
he found the state finances utterly exhausted, and private resources in such a low con- 
dition that he could do nothing, and was compelled to abandon the enterprise. Filled 
with chagrin at his disappointment, he entered the office of Jeflerson, and resumed 
the studies which the alarms of war had interrupted. 

In 1780, Mr. Jeflerson, being governor of Virginia, sent major Monroe on a sjiecial 
commission to the southern army, to ascertain its condition ; a duty Avhich he per- 
formed to the entire satisfaction of that eminent man. On his return he was elected 
to the legislature, and the year foflowing was made one of the governor's council. 

In 1783, being only twenty-four years of age, Mr. Monroe was elected to a seat in 
the continental congress. After three years' service in that body he became once more 
a member of the Virginia legislature. In 1788, he was a member of the convention 
cafled to decide on the adoption of the new constitution, and voted in the minority 
against the adoption. In 1790, he was elected to the United States senate ; and in 
1794, he was sent envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the court of 
Versailles. After settling the cession of Louisiana to the United States, he w( nt to 
England to succeed Mr. King as minister to the court of St. James. The aflliir of 
the frigate Chesapeake placing him in an uncomfortable situation, he returned to the 
United States, and, in 1810, was elected to the Virginia legislature. He was soon 
after chosen governor of that state, in which office he remained until Mr. Madison 
called him to assume the duties of secretary of state in his cabinet. The war of 
1812 found him in this office. In 1817, he was elected president of the United States. 
He was reelected in 1821 with great unanimity. His administration was a prosper- 
ous and quiet one. 

In coaction with Jefferson and Madison he founded the university of Virginia ; and 
when the convention was formed for the revision of the constitution of his state, he 
was cafled to preside over its action. Not long after this he went to reside with a 
beloved daughter in New York city, where he lived until the anniversary of inde- 
pendence in 1831, when, amidst the pealing joy and congratulations of that proud 
(lay, he passed quietly and in glory away. 




REV. ORVILLE DEWEY, D. 1). 

|RVILLE DEWEY, a highly respectable clergyman of the Unitarian denomi 
nation, and an author of considerable distinction, was born in Sheffield, Berk- 
shire county, Massachusetts, in the year 1794. His father, who was a wealthy and 
intelligent farmer, determined to give his son the opportunity for getting an edu- 
cation of a high order, and after keeping him at the best schools in the county, he 
sent him to Williams College when he was seventeen. 

Born among the picturesque scenes of the mountains ot Berkshire, his spirit 
seems to have caught something of their beautiful inspiration. With a refined taste 
for all the harmonies of nature, amidst the labors of study, which he did not neglect, 
he cultivated the acquaintance of the muses. Poetry, painting, music, etc., were the 
solace of his hours of relaxation from study; and he produced, before he left college, 
some very respectable offerings to his nmse. While in college he was conspicuous 
for his close application and courteous deportment to all, and he was graduated in 
1814, with the highest honors of his class 

On leaving college ne retired to the farm on which he was born, and taught a 
school in his native village for a considerable time. Afterward he turned his atten- 
tion to mercantile pursuits, and entered himself as clerk to a commercial house of in- 

36 



518 REV. ORVILLE DEWEY, D. D 

flaeiice in New York. Here, however, he did not long remain, when he decided to 
devote himself to the ministry, of which he afterwards became so bright and shining 
a light. Educated a strict Calvinist, he was led to doubt the doctrines of the sect 
of which both he and his father were members ; and that he might satisfy himself in 
this respect, he entered as a student of divinity into the very centre and fountain of 
New England Calvinism, the Theological Seminary, at Andover, Massachusetts, 
where he pursued a thorough and careful study of the Christian doctrines, which 
resulted in the conviction that he had hitherto been in error. Accordingly, on leav- 
ing the school at Andover, and preaching for a while among his father's sect, and 
serving as agent to the Education Society of Massachusetts, he announced his 
change of views, and recommenced his ministerial course under the patronage of the 
Unitarian body. 

The change of Mr. Dewey's views produced considerable excitement and surprise 
in the theological world, for he had already acquired a high reputation for his learn- 
in'g and eloquence, which were supported by a demeanor at once dignified and 
serious. He went to Boston, then the centre and focus of what was called the neio 
system, and entered immediately into cooperation with the late celebrated Dr. Chan- 
ning, who was considered at that time the leader of the Unitarian party. The 
health of Dr. Channing failing him, he was advised by his physicians to seek its 
restoration in Europe, and during his absence Mr. Dewey supplied his pulpit with 
entire satisfaction. 

On the return of Dr. Channing to the United States, Mr. Dewey, after supplying 
the pulpits of several minor parishes, was invited to take charge of a new parish 
which had been raised in the city of New York. This invitation he accepted, and 
immediately after entered upon his new field of labor, where he soon rose to the 
highest rank in the metropolitan pulpit. He held this place until within a few 
years, when he was obliged to relinquish the charge of his parish on account of 
failing health. While pastor of the " Church of the Messiah," in New York, he 
visited Europe. On his return he published the results of his observations while 
abroad, in a very interesting book, entitled " The Old World and the New," which 
passed rapidly through several editions, and was published also in England. 

Dr. Dewey has justly been considered one of the first among those engaged in his 
j)rofession. As a pulpit orator he has few equals. His clear, sonorous voice, and 
deeply impressive and serious manner find their way to every heart ; while the absence 
of all dogmatism, and the logical manner in which he treats the subjects of his dis- 
course, make his sermons convincing at the same time they are attractive. 

.A.lthough Dr. Dewey has relinquished his parochial charge, he has not utterly 
abandoned the pulpit or his pen. He has supplied for some time the Unitarian 
pulpit at AVashington, District of Columbia. He has written and published several 
volumes, a part of which v\^ere collected and published in London in 1844, making 
nearly one thousand pages finely-printed octavo. 




NEA MATHLA. 



THE history of the Seminoles and Creeks, Indian tribes of Florida and Louisiana, 
is full of instruction. From the close of the revolutionary war to the commence- 
ment of the war of 1812, but little is known of them. A few treaties, faithlessly 
made and ruthlessly broken, is all the record made. But, from this last-named period, 
w^e have pretty full accounts of all the intercourse between these savage nations and 
our own people. The history of this intercourse, faithfully written, would cast a dark 
stain on the honor of the government of the United States, and would call up the 
manthng blush on Humanity's cheek. The savage deception and finesse were more 
than met by civilized chicanery and faithlessness. On both sides, treaties of the 
most solemn character, bearing the signatures of the chiefs of each nation, were scan- 
dalously violated, and human life was set at the same low price as that of the beasts 
of the field. Money was squandered as if it were nothing worth, and milhons of 
hearts were wrung in anguish as their kindred blood was poured out a cruel sacrifice 
to the Moloch of war and human lust and pride. And for all this we hold not the 
savages as responsible. True, they are a cruel race, and greatly given to tergiversa- 
tion and fraud, managing by low cunning and treacherous deceit; but what can we 



550 NEA MA TULA. 

expect of a sacag-c, when his cupidity and cruelty are stimulated by continued double 
dealing and ungodly oppression on the jmrt of the whites, claiming such great supe- 
riority ? Instances enough may be shown to prove that the Indian may be concili- 
ated, and that, when once his friendship is secured, nothing but the most perverse 
faithlessness will destroy it. But we are not writing a treatise on Indian character, 
or Indian relations, and will proceed at once to the business in hand. 

Nea Mathla was a powerful and noted chief of the Seminole Indians; and, 
when the war of 1812 was brought to a conclusion, he was already an old man. So 
that it is impossible to ascertain the exact date of his birth, although it must have 
been early in the last quarter of the last century. He was a brave warrior, and gov- 
erned his people in much wisdom. From the first he was opposed to treating with 
the whites concerning the removal of the Indians to the west of the father of waters. 
" You ask us," was his language and that of his tribe, "to sell our fair lands and 
happy homes for certain lands in the great west. They may be good, or they may be 
worthless. At least let us see and examine them for ourselves before you demand an 
irrevocable bargain." This very natural request was never granted ; and, as Nea 
IMathla, Osceola, and other magnates of the southern Indians were unwilling to 
dispose of their claims for such uncertain tenure, their white oppressors, finding their 
fair heritage a desirable prize, and determined to be possessed of it at any rate, qui- 
etly deposed — by what right it would puzzle a casuist to explain — these brave men, 
and appointed men more subservient to their purposes or more timid in their resist- 
ance to Saxon oppression. 

And so poor old Nea Mathla, robbed of his crown and his heritage, and pricked 
on to desperate revenge by the cruel and unholy policy of our government agents, 
seized the war knife and threw the scabbard into the flames, and throughout all that 
long and bloody war of conquest did his utmost to slay and destroy all that fell in 
his power. jNIeanwhile his successor. Hicks, who had been appointed to his place by 
the agent of our government, was slain by some of the old chief's friends. His suc- 
cessor, Charles Omalhia, shared the same fate. Nine warriors sent each a bullet 
through his heart as he sat in council. 

At length, after years of resistance, during which many of the bravest of his breth- 
ren had fallen in battle, and rivers of the best blood of the nation had been poured 
out, as well as millions of w^ealth expended, the old chief, seeing that he was 
waging a hopeless warfare, reluctantly gave himself up. He came into the American 
camp in June, 1835, with his son and daughter, on horseback, and surrendered him- 
self a prisoner of war. About four thousand Indians had just before surrendered, or 
been captured, and, as fast as they came in, were sent off to Arkansas. Here the old 
deposed chief was sent along wntH the rest, " fallen, like Lucifer, never to rise again," 
and pouring out his lament in the language of the poet: — 

" Where is my home, my forest home, the proud land of my sires ? 
Where stands the wigwam of my pride ? Where gleam the council fires ? 
Where are my fathers' hallowed graves ? my friends, so light and free ? 
Gone, gone forever from my view! Great Spirit ! can it beV 




V.\. v^. 



HON. ABBOTT LAAVRENCE. 



ABBOTT LAWRENCE, a name associated throughout the world with Amer- 
ican enterprise, was born in the village of Groton, Massachusetts, in the year 
1792. His education was received entirely at the schools in his native town, which 
at the age of sixteen he left, and entered the counting room of his elder bi'others, who 
were rapidly becoming merchant princes in the city of Boston. While in this sub- 
ordinate station he faithfully discharged the duties of his office, and took great pains 
to become thoroughly acquainted with the entire business of traffic. He also strove 
to store his mind with such general classical knowledge as might be of use to him in 
his intercourse with the world. These studious habits he never forsook ; and when 
he came to figure in public life, he found himself prepared to stand upon equal 
ground with his learned associates. 

About the time of the commencement of the late war with Great Britain, Mr 
Lawrence went into partnership with his brothers, whose house had become one of 
the largest importing concerns in the city of Boston. In his new relation he had 
occasion to cross the ocean several times, and to visit all the principal cities of Eu- 
rope. As he increased in wealth he turned his thoughts to the subject of manufac- 
luring, a subject which had begun to awaken a deep interest in the United States. 



552 HON. ABBOTT LAWRENCE. 

At that time Lowell was an insignificant village on the banks of the Merrimac, 
and on the very confines of the state. Mr. Lawrence, in common with a few other 
thrifty merchants, had for some time thought it feasible to build upon our own 
streams large mills for the manufacture of cotton, which might vie with those of 
Manchester, Liverpool, etc. ; and, in 1821-2, a company bought a large tract of land 
of the " Proprietors of the Locks and Canals on Merrimac river," and commenced 
operations. They erected magnificent and costly mills, and procured from England 
the best machinery, — for as yet it was not cbeamed of to supply our mills with home- 
made machinery, — and were soon driving a prosperous business. 

In 1826, the village was erected into a corporation with a city government, and 
called Lowell, in honor of Francis C. Lowell, a wealthy and benevolent gentleman 
of Boston, who owned large shares in the new corporations of that now fast-grow- 
ing town, and who gave splendid donations to the new city which bears his name. 
In all the vicissitudes of the cotton manufactures, in depression and prosperity, no 
man has more largely shared than Mr. Lawi'ence. He has accumulated immense 
wealth, and all the interests of the city have been most munificently endowed by it 
— perhaps no man has done more for Lowell than he. From a village of a popula- 
tion of two hundred, it has increased to a city of a population of nearly forty thou- 
sand. 

In 1836, when the manufacturing interests were at a very low ebb, Mr. Lawrence 
was elected by the friends of manufactures a member of the twenty-fourth congress. 
The December following found him on the floor of the house of representatives ; and 
through the whole of that and the next sessions of congress, he took a prominent 
stand in his advocacy of the ])rotecting policy and against that of free trade. No 
man was more respected while in Washington, both for the soundness of principles 
and the great urbanity of his deportment, and many of his warmest personal friends 
were numbered with his political opponents. 

In 1843, Ml'. Lawrence was placed upon that important commission appointed by 
congress to settle the long-disputed line of boundary between our north-eastern pos- 
sessions and those of England adjoining. In this delicate and difficult duty he ac- 
quitted himself with great credit to his government. In 1849, under the administra- 
tion of president Taylor, he was sent as minister to the court of St. James, where he 
remained until the past year, when he returned and again took up his residence in 
Boston, where his munificent benefactions have been experienced by the corporation 
and many worthy individuals ; and his splendid and elegant hospitaHty attracts the 
elite of the country and the most distinguished foreigners who visit that city. His 
public charities are on a princely scale, and among them may be mentioned a do- 
nation of fifty thousand dollars to Harvard university. 




VALENTINE MOTTE, M. D.,LL.D. 



VALENTINE MOTTE was bom at Glen Cove, Oyster Bay, Long Island, New 
York, in August, 1785, He early evinced a strong love for the science of med- 
icine, which his father, who was an eminent physician, encouraged and strengthened. 
.'Vfter having received such instruction as the town afforded, assisted also by his father, he 
was sent to a private seminary at Newtown, Long Island, where he became thoroughly 
acquainted with the rudiments of a classical education. From this school he was 
transferred to Columbia college, in the city of New York, in 1803, where he com- 
pleted his collegiate and medical education, and was graduated with distinguished 
honor and the degree of doctor of medicine in 1806. 

In 1807, he repaired to London and entered as a student at Guy's and St. Thomas's 
hospitals. Here he was under the immediate instruction of Abernethy, Cooper, the 
elder Cline, Currie, and Haighton. In this school he made astonishing proficiency, 
and secured the respect and perpetual friendship of his teachers. Having passed two 
years in the goodly society of these noted hospitals, he went over to Edinburgh, in 
Scotland, where he spent another twelvemonth under charge of the most eminent 
philosophers and surgeons of the excellent university of that ancient town. 



554 VALENTINE INIOTTE, M. D., LL. D. 

Bearing off the highest honors these European universiti(;s could confer, Dr. Motte 
returned to his native shores and took up his residence in the city of New York, 
He had ah-eady acquired an enviable fame as a surgeon, and his ciiirurgical opera- 
tions in England had excited the surprise and admiration of the most eminent men 
in the realm, the fame whereof had long since reached the ears of his alma mater. 
Immediately after his return, he was appointed to the chair of surgery in Columbia 
college. lie held this situation until the union of the medical faculty of that college 
with the college of physicians and surgeons established in 1813. Here he continued 
to discharge the duties of professor of surgery and anatomy until the establishment 
of the Rutgers medical college, in 1826. The establishment of this school grew out 
of a difficulty between its professors and the trustees of the college of physicians and 
surgeons, when Hosack, Motte, Post, and other eminent surgeons and physicians 
Vv'ithdrew from the old and became professors in the new school. In 1830, however, 
the legislature of New York assumed and put a termination to the quarrel by abol- 
ishing the Rutgers school and declaring its organization null and void. 

In 1835, Dr. Motte made another voyage to Europe, for the improvement of his 
health and the enlargement of his surgical experience. He travelled in nearly all Ihe 
countries of Europe, extending his researches even to the Nile; when he returned 
to this country and gave the result of his travels to the world in an interesting vol- 
ume. He was soon after called to the chair of surgery and anatomy in the univer- 
sity of New York, an institution founded in his absence. At this post he still re- 
mains, an honor to the university and the city where he dwells. 

Dr. Motte has devoted himself to the department of surgery, and stands at the 
head of his profession. Sir Astley Cooper says of him, " He has performed more of 
the great operations than any man living, or that ever did live ; " while the distin- 
guished Abernethy declares him to be " the most skilful among living chirurgeons.'* 
In America none disputes with him the claim to be at the head of his profession 
His bold hand has undertaken operations — and successfully carried them through 
— from which all other hands shrunk affrighted. In 1819, he applied the first ligature 
ever placed upon the arteria innominata of a human being. This was for an an- 
eurism of the right subclavian artery. In 1821, he also performed the first operation 
for ostea-sarcoma on the lower jaw. These are but a small part of his brilliant and 
wonderful chirurgical performances, the renown of which has filled the world and 
added a glorious lustre to surgical science in this country. Besides his practical 
duties, he has written and published much on his favorite science. 




\^~ N: N 



SPURZHETM. 



JOHN GASPER SPURZHEIM, so justly celebrated as the disciple and coad- 
jutor of Dr. Gall, whose new philosophy of the brain effected a complete revolu- 
tion in the anatomical science in the whole world, was a native of Rhenish Prussia, 
and was born near Treves, on the banks of the beautiful Moselle, on the last day of 
the year 1776. Having acquired the rudiments of Latin and Greek, he entered the 
university of Treves in 1791, where he acquired a thorough classical education and 
graduated with high honor. His father designing him for the ministry, he pursued 
the studies of that profession with great zeal, and became a profound philosopher, 
logician, and divine. 

On completing his studies Spurzheim proceeded to Vienna, and entered upon the 
instruction of the sons of count Spangen. At that time Dr. Gall was an eminent 
physician in that city, and his discoveries in the structure of the brain had already 
begun to attract a good deal of attention. Spurzheim became greatly interested in 
the subject, and commenced listening to his lectures in 1799. He soon became a 
convert to the new theory ; and his profoundly philosophical cast of mind rendered 
the task of comprehension and adoption an easy one. Gall was not long in per- 

37 



556 



SPURZ HEIM 



ceiving this, and called the student to his assistance and partnership in his great 
work, in which the master was fain to acknowledge his indebtedness to the pupil for 
many valuable hints and improvements. 

Driven from the capital of Prussia by that bigoted and lightfearing government, 
they proceeded to Berlin, where, in 1805, they repeated their experiments and demon- 
strations to the delight and astonishment of the learned savans of that city. From 
Berlin, after two years of eminent success, they proceeded to Paris in the fall of 1807. 
Here they labored jointly until 1813, in great harmony, publishing many valuable 
treatises on their favorite studies, the last of which was " Anatomy and Physiology 
of the Nervous System in General, and of the Brain in Particular," when they de- 
cided to pursue a separate course. 

Dr. Spurzheim now proceeded to London in 1814^ where he commenced delivering 
and publishing his lectures. He was violently assailed by the Edinburgh Eeview, in 
which he was denounced as "a thorough quack," and his doctrines "a collection of 
absurdities and the merest trash." He at once repaired to Edinburgh, and, calling on 
the author of the vindictive essay, politely requested permission to dissect a brain in 
his presence. This being conceded, he went into the lecture room of Dr. Gordon 
and triumphantly vindicated himself from the charge of empiricism, and earned the 
whole body of physicians, who were as much delighted as surprised at his clear and 
convincing demonstrations. 

Returning to London after a year's absence, Dr. Spurzheim became a licentiate of 
the royal college of physicians ; and in July, 1817, he returned to Paris, and resumed 
his course of demonstrative lectures ; marrying, the same year, a widow by the name 
of Perice, the mother of three children by her former husband. Here he passed eight 
years, when he revisited England, where he w^as honored with the most marked dis- 
tinctions, and listened to by the highest functionaries of the realm. He also visited 
Scotland and L-eland, and returned to Paris in 1831. 

The year following, Dr. Spurzheim was induced, by the many pressing invitations 
he had received from the large towns in the United States, to visit America ; and he 
accordingly sailed from Havre on the 20th of June, 1832, and reached Boston on the 
4th of August. Here he was received with every demonstration of respect, and his ac- 
quaintance was eagerly sought by the most distinguished men of all professions. He 
immediately commenced a course of public lectures ; and soon after another course at 
Harvard university, in Cambridge. His demonstrations created the profoundest in- 
terest in these places, and many gentlemen came a long distance to attend them. 
But his labors were very severe, and the change of climate was too much for even 
his strong constitution and powerful frame. A general debility followed his pro- 
tracted labors, which resulted in an attack of fever, and ended his valuable life on 
the 10th of November, 1832, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. His death created a 
profound sensation, and multitudes joined the mournful procession which followed 
his mortal remains to their hallowed resting-place in the beautiful gi-ounds of Mount 
A.ubuni. 




COMMODORE JAMES BIDDLE. 



JAMES BIDDLE, the son of Charles Biddle, was bom in Philadelphia, Feb- 
ruary 18. 1783. After pursuing his preparatory studies in the best schools of his 
native city, he completed his education at the university of Pennsylvania. The bril- 
liant successes of captain Truxton in the French war, just preceding the commence- 
ment of the nineteenth century, had turned the attention of our young men just rising 
to majority to the naval profession, as a proper field on which to unfold their genius 
and secure their fortune. 

Early in the present century James, the subject of this memoir, together with his 
brother Edward, entered the naval service with each a midshipman's warrant, and 
were attached to the frigate President, under command of the gallant Truxton, just 
about to sail on a cruise in the West Indian seas. Peace having been established 
with France, the ship made but a short cruise, and returned to the United States, 
bringing with it the mortal remains of the younger of the brothers. 

In 1802, young Biddle was attached to the Constellation, captain Murray, which 
was ordered to cruise in the Tripolitan seas, in order to protect our commerce from 
the pirates which infested those waters. Nothing of particular interest occurred on 



558 C I\I M ODORE JAIMES BIDDLE. 

this cruise ; but it afforded our youthful midshipman a fine opportunity for storing his 
mind with much valuable knowledge, both in his profession and in science and belles 
lettres — an opportunity which he most faithfully improved. 

On the return of the Constellation, in 1803, JMr. Biddle was transferred to the 
frigate Philadelphia, captain Bainbridge, and once more sailed for the Mediterranean. 
The fate of this unfortunate ship is well known. She struck upon a rock and fell 
into the hands of the enemy. The treatment of the officers and crew who were 
taken prisoners, among whom was the subject of this notice, was severe and cruel. 
For nineteen months he was shut up in a loathsome hole, fit not even for a wild 
beast, and fed on the coarsest fare, and that doled out in pittances scarcely sufficient 
to keep the life within him. Bainbridge and Biddle were strongly attached to each 
other, and sustained and cheered each other throughout this long and dreary cap- 
tivity. 

The peace with Tripoli effected their release ; and in September, 1805, they re- 
turned together to Philadelphia. Mr. Biddle was immediately promoted to a lieu- 
tenancy, and put in command of one of the gunboats then lying at Charleston, South 
Carolina ; but not liking the dull life he was there compelled to lead, he obtained, in 
1811, the appointment of second lieutenant on board the President, under command 
of his fellow-sufferer in captivity, captain Bainbridge. In this capacity he went to 
France, his ship bearing official despatches to that court. 

Soon after his return war was declared against England by the United States; and 
he was immediately ordered to join the Wasp, captain Jones, who was about to proceed 
to the court of Versailles, as the bearer of important despatches. He entered this ship 
as first lieutenant, and sailed in October, 1812. The action of the Wasp with the 
British ship Frolic occurred in the early part of this voyage, in which the English 
lion was compelled to crouch before the American eagle. In carrying his prize into 
port, captain Jones was overhauled by an English ship of the line, and both vessels 
were made the prizes of the British man-of-war ; and captain Jones and lieutenant 
Biddle were carried into Bermuda, where, after a brief detention, they were released 
on their parole, and shortly after returned to the United States. For the part taken 
in the gallant affair with the Frolic, the legislature of Pennsylvania voted a sword 
and thanks to the first lieutenant of the Wasp. 

Not long after his return, lieutenant Biddle was promoted to the rank of master 
commandant, and ordered to the command of the sloop-of-war Hornet, and joined to 
the squadron destined for the East Indies, under commodore Decatur. He sailed on 
the 20th of March, 1815 ; and on the third day out the Hornet fell in with the Pen- 
guin, a British ship of much larger force, which she captured in a short time. In this 
action captain Biddle was badly wounded in the neck. 

In 1831, commodore Biddle was sent as a diplomatic agent to Turkey, to act in 
concert with Hon. A. H. Everett ; after whose death, he represented his government 
in China in 1847, while in command of the East Indian squadron. From China he 
sailed to the coast of California, and assumed the command of the naval and milita- 
ry forces on that station. He returned to Philadelphia, and died October 1, 1848, at 
the age of sixty-five. 




HON. JESSE BUELL. 



JESSE BUELL was bom at Coventry, Connecticut, on the 4th of January 
1778. He was the youngest of a family of fourteen children, of poor parents, 
and of course his opportunities for the acquisition of an education were very limited. 
A half year's attendance on a common district school was all the schooHng he ever 
had. But he was early placed at one of those practical seminaries of knowledge 
where so many of our great men have acquired their education and reputation, a 
printing office. Here he was noted for his sprightly diligence and attention to the 
business in hand ; and he soon acquired favor in the eyes of his master, who was not 
long in discovering the natural powers of his mind. His occupation as a journeyman 
printer led him to a quite extensive acquaintance with the political journals, and he 
was often employed as assistant editor in the absence of the real editor. 

INIr. Buell's first editorial labors were performed in Troy, when he had charge of the 
Troy Budget. After this, in 1813, he removed to Albany, and took charge of the 
Albany Argus, a leading political paper in the state of New York. In this depart- 
ment he labored with great fidelity until the year 1821. During this period he was 
chosen to both branches of the legislature, where his strong good sense and extensive 
practical knowledge made him one of the most reppected and efficient members. 



560 HON. JESSE BUELL. 

The science of agriculture had early attracted the attention of Mr. Buell, and he 
entered into its study with great zeal. Many of his best articles in the Argus were 
upon this subject, and he took a prominent stand in the legislature in behalf of the 
same. Determined to put his principles to the test, in 1821, he purchased a tract of 
desolate land, appropriately called in the neighborhood ^^ sandij barrens,'" contaming 
eighty-five acres, at the price of thirty dollars per acre. As an evidence of what good 
cultivation will do, it may be stated that this very tract was appraised, at his death, 
at two hundred dollars per acre. " It is as an agriculturist," says the Albany Argus, 
'' in the great and broad sense of the word, practically and scientifically, that he has 
built his fame as a public benefactor. As such he was known throughout this conti- 
nent and in the old world ; and no man has contributed more, as a writer and in prac- 
tical life, to elevate, inform, and improve the agi'iculture of his age. About the year 
1833, as an auxiliary in his plan for the diiTusion of knowledge on this subject, judge 
Buell established ' The Cultivator,' a monthly pubhcation of the highest value and 
of great and varied information, and which has attained a vast circulation throughout 
the American continent. His labors, however, were not confined to his monthly pub- 
lication, ample as were its pages. His pen was in constant requisition upon nearly 
every subject connected with the cultivation of the soil, and his correspondence, 
throughout the Union and abroad, was extensive. In example not less than in pre- 
cept, he may be said to have conferred blessings upon the times in which he lived — 
blessings that will continue to fructify and ripen into fruit long after his body shall 
have mingled with his favorite earth." 

He also delivered addresses on the subjects of agTiculture and horticulture in nearly 
all parts of our country, by which he diffused a vast amount of knowledge among 
practical farmers and fruit gi-owers. It was while on his way to deliver addresses 
before the horticultural societies of Norwich and New Haven that he was seized by 
an attack of bilious fever, which ended his valuable life on the 4th of October, 1839, 
in the sLxty-second year of his age. 

Few men have lived possessed of a more enviable fame than that which was faith- 
fully earned by judge Buell. It was the fame of one who strove to elevate labor 
into a dignity, and who made it productive not only of animal comforts, but the en- 
largement and ennobling of the immortal natures of his fellow-men. Simple in his 
habits and modest in his expectations, he sought no office, but often declined its hon- 
ors. He was a candidate for the high office of governor for the state of New York 
in 1836, and at the time of his death was a regent of the university of that state. 

" As a neighbor and a citizen, and in all the relations of domestic life, he was with- 
out reproach. He was esteemed not less for his integrity than his intelligence and 
worth — for the unaffected affability and simplicity of manner in his intercourse with 
his fellow-men. He may be said to have lived for utility, and to have died in the 
prosecution of his favorite employment." 




JOHI^ ERICSSON. 



HE who brings into the world any new truth is a benefactor to his race. 
Whether he discovers a new planet, or a new country on the globe we live in , 
whether it be a new law in ethics or mechanics ; whether it be for the diminution of 
mere muscular force, or the amelioration of the moral or physical sufferings of the 
world ; whether it economizes time or produces wealth ; whether it adds knowledge 
to the world's common stock, or increases the amount of virtue amongst mankind ; 
he who does this deserves the respect and gratitude of all men, and to him belongs 
the thankful hosannas of the world. 

In the world of mechanics, the caloric engine bids fair to take the highest rank. 
It has already more than answered the expectation of its inventor and his friends. 
The caloric ship is no longer an experiment. If it ever fulfil all its promises to the 
world or not, enough is made certain to satisfy every one of the humanity and wis- 
dom of the invention. It may never take the place of steam where speed is the great 
desideratum ; but in all cases where power is alone required, its adaptation must, in 
the end, become universal. Its entire safety, its wonderful economy both in fuel and 
the number of men to oversee its movements, together with its lighter first cost, will 
recommend it to manufacturers of every description who now depend on steam for 
their motive power. 



562 JOHN ERICSSON 

The inventor of this remarkable machine, and who deserves the blessings of ah 
mankind for the steady perseverance under all manner of difficulties, and amidst the 
scoffs of the incredulous, with which he has brought his invention to the condition 
he has so long and devoutly wished, is John Ericsson, a Swede by birth, and an 
American by adoption and naturalization. He was born in the province of Verme- 
land, Sweden, in 180-3. Early in life he manifested a remarkable fondness for every 
mechanical movement, and exhibited considerable ingenuity in the manufacture of 
mechanical instruments. Attracting the attention of Count Platen, he was, through 
his influence, joined to a corps of engineers as a cadet, and, in 1816, made nivel- 
leur on the gi'eat ship canal between the North Sea and the Baltic. Acquiring a 
taste for a military life, he joined the army, against the wishes of his patron, who, 
thenceafter, withdrew his patronage. He soon received a lieutenant's commission, 
and was appointed to the engineer corps, whose duty it became to survey the north- 
ern portion of Sweden. 

It was at this period that he visited England, and projected his " flame engine," 
which, however, did not succeed at that time. After various inventions and im- 
provements in machinery, he was induced to tm-n his face towards America, hoping 
to find a larger and freer field for his labors. Here his name has become identified 
with American history, and the progress of mechanics the world over. The " Erics- 
son's propeller ; " " semi-cylindrical engine;" "centrifugal blowers ; " the " hydrostatic 
gauge," for measuring fluids undei* pressure; the "reciprocating fluid metre ;" the 
"alarm barometer;" the "pyrometer," and the "improved sea lead;" these are 
some of the inventions which this great mechanician has given to the world. But 
all these pale before his great invention, " the caloric eng-ine,^^ of which we spoke in 
the opening paragraphs of this article. 

A ship of more than two thousand tons gauge has been built, on which no pains 
or expense has been spared, on purpose to give this new motor a fair trial. Its ex- 
perimental trips, both in smooth and rough water, tested the sailing qualities of the 
model and the working excellence of the engine. Having undergone several im- 
portant alterations, suggested by its trial trips, it is about to cross the ocean to finally 
test both the vessel and the engine. We trust and believe it will succeed, and that, 
after a few years' experience, the caloric ship will be able to compete with the swift- 
est steamships that cross the seas. May the life of the inventor be spared to witness 
the entire and complete triumph of his time-saving, labor-saving, money-saving, 
health-saving, and life-saving invention. 




HON. H. S. LEGARE 



HUGH SWINTON LEGARE was born in Dorchester, South Carolina, about 
the commencement of the present century. He was a descendant from the 
old Huguenot stock, who, having been driven from France by religious persecution 
early in the seventeenth century, fled to America, and settled in that state. The 
loss of his father, when he was a mere child, left to his mother the charge of his 
early education, a charge for which she was eminently qualified, and which she most 
faithfully fulfilled. 

When Hugh was nine years old he was sent to Charleston, and placed in the 
school of Mitchell King, since risen to eminence at the bar and appointed one of the 
judges of South Carolina. He was afterwards committed to the care of Rev. Mr. 
Waddel, a celebrated teacher, who has been instrumental of forming the minds of 
many of the finest men of the Palmetto State. His progress under these teachers 
was rapid, and his acquisitions in the learned languages were far beyond his years. 
With high promise he entered the College of South Carolina at the early age of 
fourteen, and, with Preston for his classmate and rival, bore off the high honors of 
his class on the day of his graduation. These two noble men contracted for each 
other a strong friendship, and with a noble rivalry, into which no petty passion 



564 HON. H. S. LEGARE. 

entered, strove for the same high goal; ?.ryl when the classic wreath was placed on 
the brow of Legare, none rejoiced more in his proud triumph than his fellow in the 
race of honor, the high-souled Preston. 

Mr. Legare deciding on the law as his profession, and not choosing to place him- 
self formallv in a lawyer's office, according to the universal custom, sought and ob- 
tained for the direction of his studies the aid of an eminent member of the bar, 
distinguished by his love of learning not less than by his high professional standing. 
Judge Mitchell King, Esq., under whose friendly and judicious guidance three years 
of his life were devoted chiefly to the study of his profession. Being prepared for 
admission to the bar, he did not yet deem his education complete, and proposed to 
add to it the advantages of foreign travel. 

In 1817, Mr. Legare sailed for Europe, where he spent three years, mostly in Ed- 
inburgh and Paris, studying the principles of common and international law, when 
he returned to his native state, and entered upon the practice of his profession in the 
city of Charleston. In 1820, he was elected to the legislature, and while a member 
of this body, in which originated those famous secession movements which agitated 
the entire republic, he steadily resisted all efforts at disorganization and nullification. 

In 1827, Mr. Legare, with several of the finest minds in the south, became en- 
gaged in the management of a literary-political journal, called the " Southern Re- 
view," which acquired great celebrity throughout not only South Carolina, but the 
whole country. Some of the papers prepared for this journal by him are classically 
elegant, and overflow with beautiful thoughts ; others exhibit close, pungent reason- 
ing and deep thought, indicating a mind as mature as it was versatile. 

About the year 1830, he was appointed attorney general for the State of South 
Carolina. He held this office, winning golden opinions on every hand for the 
efficient and dignified manner in which he discharged its important duties, until 
1832, when he was sent as minister to Belgium. In 1837, on the accession of Mr. 
Van Buren to the presidency, he returned again to Charleston, and was almost im- 
mediately elected to represent the Charleston district in Congress, where he took his 
seat the next summer during the extra session of that body, called by President Van 
Buren to consider the terrible and disastrous financial condition of the country at 
that time. Being in the opposition, he became at once an object of interest and 
attack, and displayed remarkable statesmanship and forensic powers. 

At the close of the term for which he was elected, Mr. Legare returned to Charles- 
ton and resumed the practice of the law, and soon became immersed in the most 
abstruse and difficult cases of litigation, where his legal acquirements were brought 
into full play, and begot for him a wide and high fame. In 1841, on the reorganiza- 
tion of the Harrison cabinet, he was called to assume the duties of the attorney 
generalship, which office he held until his untimely and sudden death, which occurred 
in Boston, while on an official visit to that city, on the 20th of June, 1843. Thus 
suddenly sunk his star of life ere yet he had reached the full promise of that star, — 

" Snatched all too early from that august fame, 
That, on the serene heights of silvered age, 
Waited with laurelled hands." 




REV. E. H. CHAPIN 



AN eloquent divine of the Universalist denomination, was born in Union Villao-e, 
Washington county, New York, in 1814. His rudimental and academic edu- 
cation having been completed, he entered upon the study of the law, but, in a short 
time, believing that the ministerial sphere was more suited to his tastes and better 
adapted to the labors of a reformer, he adopted the clerical profession. After a due 
course of study he accepted an invitation from the Universalist Society in Richmond, 
Virginia, and was ordained as their pastor in 1838. Here he labored with great 
acceptance for two years, when, having received a call from the Universalist Society 
in Charlestown, Massachusetts, he removed to that town in 1840, and assumed the 
pastoral labors in that society under most favorable auspices. 

Mr. Chapiurhad not been long in Charlestown before he began to be known as 
one of the most popular preachers and extemporaneous speakers in the vicinity of 
Boston. He at once assumed a bold stand in favor of the temperance reform, and 
the eloquent zeal with which he expounded and defended the cause marked him as 
among the foremost leaders of that noble work. But not on this topic alone was 
his voice and influence enlisted. Wherever the cry of wrong and oppression was 
heard, there, also, was heard his voice in tones of tender sympathy and indignant 



566 REV. E. H. CHAPIN. 

rebuke ; and the annunciation that he was to speak was a sure indication of a full 
and sympathizing audience. 

But in looking abroad for subjects of sympathy and reform, Mr. Chapin did not 
overlook the necessities of his own denomination. He found some things that 
needed strengthening, and many that required the bold and firm hand of reform ; 
and he set himself to the task with his usual energy and devotion. He found sup- 
port in many of his brethren, with whom he labored with great -success, and soon 
rose, not by any wish of his, but by the necessity which existed and the force of his 
Dwn character, to the position of a leader among his brethren — the purity of his 
life, the entire sincerity manifest in all he said and did, as well as his earnest, elo- 
quent zeal, removing all suspicion of selfishness or a desire for aggrandizement. 

After having had charge of the parish in Charlestown for the space of six years, 
he was invited to assume the pastorate of the School Street Society in Boston, as 
colleague with the venerable Hosea Ballou. Accordingly he removed to that city, 
and was installed in 1846. The extended sphere of his influence made a larger de- 
mand on his time and resources — a demand which he fully met and satisfied. But 
he tarried at that post only for a short period. His growing usefulness plainly in- 
dicated that his place was in the widest sphere of influence, and all his brethren 
saw the propriety and necessity-of his transplantation to the great national metrop- 
olis. New York. 

Accordingly, in 1848, having been invited to become the minister of the Murray 
Street Universalist Society, Mr. Chapin removed to that city and entered upon his 
ministerial and philanthropic duties. His great popularity had preceded him, and in 
a short time the old church was found too small for the accommodation of his 
rapidly-increasing congregation. The society of Unitarians worshipping in Broad- 
way, and under the pastoral charge of Rev. INIr. Bellows, having decided to build a 
new place of worship farther up town, the Murray Street Society purchased the 
property, and took possession of the same in 1852. Here Mr. Chapin now preaches 
to crowded audiences. 

Besides the great eloquence of this distinguished divine, his principal traits are, 
entire freedom from sectarian and dogmatic trammels, a bold utterance of what he 
deems true, and a fearless defence of freedom of conscience and freedom of speech. 
His sermons are rarely merely doctrinal, but he directs the whole powers of his mind 
against wickedness, in whatever form or under whatever disguise it may present it- 
self. Besides his regular Sunday services, he is a popular public lecturer, and is en- 
gaged by the various literary and scientific societies throughout the country to deliver 
addresses upon the numerous subjects which come before those bodies for discussion. 
He has also appeared in print on the various topics connected with religion and phi- 
lanthropy which excite the publicmind ; and as he is yet only a young man we may 
confidently predict that the future will fully realize the prophecy of ljisx)pening life. 




COLONEL DAVID CROCKETT. 



"jVT O country has been so productive of the genuine backwoodsman as our own. 
-L^ We do not mean a mere clodhopper — every land is full of them — but such 
men as Cooper's original for Leather Stocking and Harvey Birch, or Judge Hali- 
burton's Sam Slick ; men whose birth was obscure, and whose education was neg- 
lected, but whose " natural gifts," as they say in Yankeedom, were of a high order, 
and who, had they been educated, would have been among "the great men " of the 
nation. 

Such a man was David Crockett, the eccentric, laughter-loving, fun-making back- 
woodsman, of whom more amusing stories are told than of any other man in our 
country. He was born at the mouth of the Limestone River, in Greene county, 
East Tennessee, on the 17th of August, 1786. He was of Irish descent. The cli- 
mate of his Ip^rth place seems to have had no effect in destroying the real natural 
humor, which appears in every passage of our hero's life — and his father took a 
prominent part in the revolutionary war, shedding his blood freely for the establish- 
ment of our national independence. At the time of David's birth. East Tennessee 
was a mere wilderness. ' Of course the boy grew up without the means of education, 
save such as an occasional month at some rustic school, or the lessons taught him 
in his rude home, afforded. 



568 COLONEL DAVID CROCKETT. 

» 

When Crockett was seven years old, his father, who, from being in quite comfort- 
able circumstances, became suddenly bankrupt, by reason of a disastrous conflagra- 
tion, removed to Jefferson county, and opened a small public house. Here the boy 
remained, helping his father, until he was about twelve, when he was "hired out" 
to a Dutchman, whose business was that of collecting cattle for the eastern market. 
Here he commenced a vagrant life, full of rough and dangerous adventure, exposure, 
and hardship, and which seemed to be second nature to him ever afterward. After 
some months' service he became tired of the Dutchman, ran away, and after much 
rough usage, finally reached his father's house, where he spent a year, when he ran 
away once more and joined another cattle merchant bound for western Virginia, 
who dismissed him at the end of the journey, and turned him loose upon the world, 
with just four dollars in his pocket. Now, in his own emphatic language, he com- 
menced ^^ knocking' about for himself,''^ and leading the same vagrant mode of life 
as before. 

For three years did young Crockett " knock aboiU,''^ when he returned home, went 
to school a few weeks, fell in love several times, unsuccessfully, and at length was 
married, and became a father. This was in 1810. Not liking his situation, he re- 
moved to Elk River, in the same state. War having been declared against England, 
he enlisted as a volunteer, serving under the brave General Jackson, and was, in sev- 
eral hard-fought battles, the foremost among the brave. At the close of the war, he 
was honored with the title of colonel. While in the army his wife died, leaving 
several children to his care, and he soon sought a helpmate in the widow of a de- 
ceased friend, and was a second time married. He then removed to Laurens county, 
was made a justice of the peace, and elected to the legislature, where he ac- 
quired celebrity for his eccentricities, and the sobriquet of " the member from the 
Cane:' 

He soon removed to western Tennessee, and gave himself to hunting, and became 
famous as "the crack shot of all those diggins." We could fill our book with anec- 
dotes of his backwoods' life, but have no room. From this rude district he was sent 
to Congress in 1828, and again in 1830, where he soon became as noted for his pop- 
nlarity as for his rude and brusque manners. 

When the Texans took up the sword for the maintenance of their independence, 
Colonel Crockett enlisted in their cause, and died fighting in their behalf. J^J^i Oi {j^^^^^j^ 

Colonel Crockett was an honest man, and generous to a fault. The following 
anecdote will illustrate his great benevolence. During a season of scarcity in hi? 
district, he went up the Mississippi and bought a flatboat load of corn, and took it 
to what he called " his old stamping ground." When a man came to him to buy 
corn, the first question he asked was, " Have you got the money to pay for it ? " 
If the answer was in the affirmative, Davy's reply was, " Then you can't have a 
kernel. I brought it here to sell to people that have no money." -» , 




LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



THERE are few names that command a larger portion of our respect than that 
of Louis Agassiz ; a man of rare attainments in nearly all the exact sciences, 
and full, withal, of a most discriminating and manly philosophy, which is tram- 
melled by no scholastic rules ; never fearing to tread on unexplored ground in the 
regions of truth, respecting no opinion for its mere antiquity, or because it has the 
sanction of great names, but causing all speculations and oi)inions to pass the ordeal 
of pure reason, which is the profoundest philosophy. It is, however, as a naturalist 
that Mr. Agassiz is most widely known, and by his discoveries in that department 
of science that he has contributed most largely to the fund of general knowledge. 

Louis Agassiz was born at Orbe, in Waatlande, Switzerland, in 1807. His father 
was pastor to the church of his native village. In early childhood he manifested a 
deep love of knowledge, and eagerly listened to the instructive conversation of his 
father, or read such books as could satisfy his hunger for knowledge. As he grew 
up, he exhibited a passion for natural history, and would spend whole days among 
the crags and ravines of his wild mountain home, seeking out the curious manifes- 
tations of the natural world, and transported with joy whenever a new plant, or 
flower, or rock, or fossil rewarded his untiring zeal. At the age of eleven he was 



570 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 

sent to the gymnasium at Biel, where, such was his proficiency, that, in 1822, he was 
promoted to the Academy of Lausanne. From this place he was transferred to the 
University at Zurich, where he studied medicine and the exact sciences. He then 
entered the famous schools in Munich and Heidelberg, where he spent two years in 
the study of comparative anatomy and its kindred sciences, particularly chemistry ; 
taking from the last-named institution the degree of M. D. 

While pursuing his studies, and immediately after taking his degree, Agassiz de- 
voted himself to the study of the natural history of the piscatory tribes; and such 
was the thorough manner in which he pursued this branch of science, that Martins 
asked his aid in publishing an account of the fishes discovered by Spix in the Bra- 
zilian waters. The work of arranging and classifying the one hundred and sixteen 
species of fishes which Spix had discovered fell entirely upon our young naturalist, 
and so faithfully did he execute his duties that he has as yet had no occasion for a 
reclassification. Having finished this great work, he published his " Natural History 
of Fresh-water Fishes in Europe," both antediluvian and since. This was in 1839, 
and the work was executed with the most thorough completeness. At the same 
time he gave to the world his " Researches on Fossil Fishes" and his "Descrip- 
tions of Echinodermes." While engaged on his work on fossil fishes, a friend sent 
him a scale which he had exhumed from the chalk formations near the city of Paris. 
On this slender foundation he undertook to draw a portrait of the fish, long extinct, 
to which it had once belonged, giving a description of its habits, fixing its place in 
the piscatory family, etc., etc., and sent his paper to the Academy of Arts and Sci- 
ences in Paris, where it was published in their scientific journal. Five years after 
this, that same friend had the good fortune to discover a perfect fossil of the same 
fish ; and so perfect had been his drawing of the same, that there was no necessity 
of altering a single line. 

Not long after this Mr. Agassiz gave to the world his famous work, " Study of the 
Glaciers," in which he controverted the long-established theories of the creation, and 
the changes which the surface of the world has undergone since it acquired form and 
place among the planets. His views startled the scientific and religious world, and 
have by no means met with a general reception even among the savans of the earth. 
But the modesty with which these views were launched upon the troubled sea of 
science was equal to the courage and firmness with which he has ever since main- 
tained them ; and they are gradually obtaining the credence of the scientific and 
thoughtful investigator of truth, and will, we doubt not, do a great work for science, 
in shaking the old foundations of error as taught in the schools of the world. 

Mr. Agassiz has been a resident of the United States for nearly a dozen years — 
having become a naturalized citizen. After pursuing his investigations into the 
natural history of our country from Lake Superior to the Atlantic, and from the 
Rocky Mountains to the Passamaquoddy, he accepted the chair of natural history 
and science in the University at Cambridge, Massachusetts, which he occupied until 
quite recently, when he was called to assume the duties of "professor of compara- 
tive anatomy " in the University of Charleston, South Carolina. 

Mr. Agassiz has won the respect and esteem of all who know him. His urbanity 
of manner and his cordial whole-heartedness have gained him hosts of friends, 
while his unremitting labors have contributed valuable mines of wealth to the sci- 
ftntific arcana of America. 




IIOxN. LOUIS McLANE. 



LOUIS Ale LANE, the son of Allan McLane, a gallant and brave soldier of the 
revolution, was born at Snnyrna, Kent county, Delaware, on the 28th of May, 
1786. Very early in life a strong military spirit showed itself in all his tastes and 
pursuits. The stories his father had told him of the struggles of freemen, and the 
battles they fought for liberty, doubtless fired his youthful imagination ; and he longed 
to follow to the field some brave old soldier like his sire, or tread the decks of some 
proud ship-of-war, and there, amidst the roar of cannon and the rattle of musketry, 
to "do or die" for the cause of his country. And his wishes were so far realized, 
that at the early age of twelve he was entered as a midshipman in the United States 
navy, and ordered to the Philadelphia frigate, about to sail on her first cruise. For 
a whole year he followed the seas, when, at the earnest solicitation of his mother, 
he changed his plans, and elected the law as the field of his future glory, and de- 
voted himself to the acquisition of knowledge with the same zeal and perseverance 
which had marked his devotion to the naval profession. 

After a due course of classical study in the college of Newark, Delaware, ho en- 
tered the office of that distinguished lawyer and statesman, Hon. J. A. Bayard, and 
commenced reading law in 1804. In November, 1807, Mr. McLane was admitted 

39 



572 HON. LOUIS McLANE. 

to the bar, and ojjened an office at Newcastle. He soon rose to eminence, ar/i wa.^ 
ensraged constantly in cases of the utmost importance, involving not only property 
to large amounts, but reputation also. With a large and comprehensive under- 
standing, a free, manly, and calm address, with great perspicuity of mind and quick- 
ness of perception, he became a popular pleader; while his fairness and the elevated 
tone of his address won for him the confidence of the bench aud the respect of 
the bar. 

When the war of 1812 was declared, although he had opposed its declaration as 
unjust and impolitic, he lent all his powers of mind to its support. Although 
he had been recently married, he left the soft and joyous dalliance of love for the 
rififors and dansjers of the tented field. He aided with his own hands in the erection 
of the fortifications deemed necessary for the defence of his native state, and, when 
they were complete, he volunteered his services as a soldier, and entering the ranks 
as a private, he became a member of a volunteer company, under the command of 
Hon. Caesar A. Rodney, then attorney general of the United States. But his pa- 
triotism \vas spared the test of fire. He marched for the defence of Baltimore, but 
his services were never required. 

In 1816, Mr. McLane was elected to a seat in the United States Congress by the 
people of Delaware, which he held until 1827, when he was transferred to the upper 
house of Congress. In 1829, he was sent, by President Jackson, to represent our 
government at the court of St. James. He remained in London only two years, 
when he was recalled to take charge of the treasury department. In 1833, during 
the second administration of President Jackson, he was intrusted with the charge 
of the state department, which office he held until the close of that administration. 

In the discharge of the duties of these various and responsible situations, Mr. 
McLane won the entire confidence of the old veteran, his chief, and commanded the 
respect of all his colleagues ; while he was held in esteem by his fellow-citizens of 
whatever grade in society or shade in politics. 



n^•>^i■<^*■y, 




BLACK HAWK 



MA-KA-TAI-ME-SHE-KIA-KIAK, or BLACK HAWK, the most relent- 
less foe to the whites, and one of the very last to smoke with them the calu- 
met of peace, was born at the Sac village, on Rock River, in Illinois, in 1767. That 
powerful tribe of North American Indians, the Sacs, whose mighty line of chiefs 
was the brave ancestry of Black Hawk, came from Canada, near Montreal, from 
whence they were driven by a combination of the neighboring tribes, and were pur- 
sued from place to place until they finally found a resting-place on the Rock River, 
where our hero was born. 

At fifteen years of age Black Hawk, having wounded an enemy in an action of 
the Sacs with the Osages, was permitted to paint, wear feathers, and to join the 
braves in their dances and war parties. Shortly after he succeeded in "killing his 
loan" in battle, and then he was accounted a brave, and permitted to join in the 
scalp dance, au honor of which he was extremely proud. From this time until the 
Mississippi valley was conquered by the English from the French, the history ot this 
young savage is a continued series of Indian warfare, murder, and rapine — a life in 
which he revelled. 

It was not long after the north-western territory fell under the protection of the 



574 BLACK HAWK. 

Ujiited States government, that the fears of the Indians were roused that the white 
men were determined to wrest their territory from their possession — a fear which 
history shows was but too well founded. There were a few brave and patriotic 
spirits resolved to stain the graves of their forefathers with their own blood, before 
they would yield their burial and hunting gi'ounds to the ruthless invaders and spoil- 
ers. Among the foremost of these was the Prophet, Black Hawk, who travelled 
and visited all the western tribes, stirring them up to mortal hate and strife against 
the whole race of the white men. From this time until he fell into the hands of the 
Americans, his whole enmity was turned towards the whites, whom he pursued with 
the most determined and savage barbarity. 

Conquered at length, we behold this redoubtable savage and his fallen com- 
panions paraded from one end of the country to the other, and exhibited at Wash- 
ington New York, Boston, and all the large cities on the route, to the infinite terror 
of little boys, the great admiration of silly women and sillier men, their own poig- 
nant humiliation, and the disgrace of the nation. 

At Washington a treaty of peace was negotiated, and five million of acres of 
land purchased of the Indians by government, for which they paid twenty-three cents 
per acre I Thus parting with his old hunting grounds, Black Hawk turned with a 
mournful spirit to those remote prairies whither civilization compelled the reluctant 
steps of the " poor Indian." In 1838, we find him at a ball given in honor of Wash- 
ington's birthday, at which he was complimented with a toast. His reply was char- 
acteristic, and as follows : — 

" It has pleased the Great Spirit that I am here to-day. The earth is our mother, 
and we are now permitted to be upon it. A few snows ago, I was fighting against 
the white people — perhaps I was Avrong — but that is past, it is buried ; let it be for- 
gotten. I love my towns and cornfields on the Rock River — it was a beautiful 
country. I fought for it, but now it is yours. Keep it as the Sacs did. I was once 
a warrior, but am now poor. Keokuk has been the cause of what I am — do not 
blame him. I love to look upon the Mississippi ; I have looked upon it from a child 
I love that beautiful river ; my home has always been upon its banks. I thank you 
for your friendship. I will say no more." 

Not long after, this famous old chief, worn out with sorrow and exposure to the 
chill winds of the eastern states, ended his checkered life, at his camp on the Des 
Moines River, on the 3d of October, 1838, in the seventy-fourth year of bis age. 




CAPTAIN CASSIUS M. CLAY 



CASSIUS MARCELLUS CLAY was born in Madison county, Kentucky, 
October 9, 1810. His father was the brave General Green Clay, who led the 
gallant legions of Kentucky in the war with England in 1812. He was graduated, 
a mere youth, at Yale College, and received from that institution the degree of 
A. M., in 1832. He entered at once upon the stage of public life, and although yet 
quite a young man, has made his name known throughout the world for his unter- 
rified devotion to the cause of the slave, though born and living in a slave district. 

In 1835, he commenced his public career by being chosen to the Kentucky legis- 
lature, where he continued until 1841. While a member of this body he exerted a 
powerful influence with its members, and stoutly and eloquently advocated a sys- 
tem of common schools, a plan for the improvement of the jury system, and inter- 
nal improvements. He had the satisfaction of seeing all his favorite measures carried 
into execution. In 1839, while a member of the legislature, he was chosen a dele- 
gate to the convention which nominated General Harrison for the presidency. In 
1844, he travelled all through Kentucky, electioneering for Henry Clay, and against 
the admission of Texas into the Union. 

In June, 1835, he established a newspaper in Lexington, Kentucky, for the avowed 



.37J ■* ■ CAPTAIN CAS SIUS M. CLAY. 

purj3ose of opposing the continuation of slavery in his native state. He immedi- 
ately encountered the bitterest opposition, and threats of personal chastisement and 
the destruction of his press were heard on all sides. Nothing daunted, he continued 
to write and publish until late in August, when be was seized with a fever, and, 
while confined to his bed, a dastardly mob broke up his press and carried it away, 
publishing a resolution that it should not again be set up in Kentucky, and threat- 
enino- to assassinate him if he should attempt it. No sooner, however, had he re- 
covered his health than he did revive it, and took the keenest revenge on his opponents. 
He not only revived it, but maintains it to this day, the organ of free speech and 
free inquiry. 

On the declaration of war against Mexico, in 1846, he enlisted in the army, and 
was appointed captain of a company of mounted men known as the " Old In- 
fantry," and the oldest military company in the state. He set out for the theatre of 
war overland, and reached Monterey after it had fallen into the hands of General 
Taylor. On his arrival he was transferred to the head of the column at Saltillo. 
On the 23d of January, while fighting under General Gaines, at Encarnacion, he was 
taken prisoner, together with Captain Henry and the remnant of their respective 
commands. 

While a prisoner. Captain Henry contrived to elude the vigilance of his keepers, 
and escape. The Mexican commander was greatly enraged, and ordered the instant 
execution of the entire party, an order which was only prevented by the cool and 
heroic conduct of Captain Clay. " Kill me," he exclaimed, interposing his person 
between the levelled muskets of the Mexicans and his brave band, " kill me, kill the 
officers — but spare the men; they are innocent I" His magnanimity and lofty 
courage struck the Mexican commander with astonishment and admiration, and he 
counteracted his bloody order. Shortly after he was released, and with the men 
under his command returned to Kentucky. On their toilsome march home their 
sufferings were very great, and many of the men must have perished but for the 
noble generosity of this brave-hearted officer, who disposed of his mule, buffalo robe, 
watch, and his entire wardrobe, save the threadbare suit he constantly wore, to pro- 
vide medicines and necessaries for his sick and wounded comrades. His moral 
courage in the defence of suffering and oppressed humanity, his bravery in battle, 
and his exalted heroism in interposing his life to save his comrades from instant 
slaughter, all wane before this great act of humanity, and for which he deserves, and 
will ever receive, the plaudits of all men who carry a heart beneath their bosoms, and 
for which he richly deserved the sword that was voted to him, on his return home, 
by the legislature of Kentucky. 

The passage of the "compromise act," in 1850, not suiting his views, he deserted 
the whig party, with whom he had heretofore acted, and suffered himself to be run 
as candidate for governor on purely anti-slavery grounds, causing the defeat of the 
whig party for the first time in twenty years. 




SAMUEL LATHAM MITCHELL, M. D., LL. D. 



SAMUEL L. MITCHELL was bora at North Hempstead, Long Island, New 
York, August 20, 1764, Losing his father early in life, his maternal xnich\ 
observing the boy's quickness of intellect, took charge of the orphan. Under i^i-- 
care he acquired a partial knowledge of the Latin and English languages, i- ■ 
as of the elementary principles of medicine. In 1780, he became a pupil -i the 
celebrated Dr. Samuel Bard, of New York, and remained in his office for duec 
years, when he went to Edinburgh, where for a period of four years more he de- 
voted himself to the acquisition of his profession and all its collateral sciences. He 
received the medical honors of the Edinburgh College, and returned to his native 
land, in 1786, with uncommon promise. 

Taking up his residence in the -city of New York, Dr. Mitchell gave considerable 
attention to the study of medical jurisprudence, under direction of Robert Yates, 
chief justice of the State of New York, and through whose influence he was ap- 
pointed one of the commissioners to treat with the Iroquois Indians, at Fort Stan- 
wix, in 1788. During this commission, and subsequently, he made extensive 
examinations of the soil, climate, and productions of northern New York and 
Canada. He analyzed the mineral waters of Saratoga and other parts of the 



578 SAMUEL LATHAM MITCHELL, M.D.,LL.D. 

state, and gave the result of his labors to the world in a work which he afterwards 
carefully and thoroughly revised. 

About this time he was appointed to the chair of chemistry and agriculture in 
Columbia College. While an occupant of this chair, he introduced the system of 
Lavoisier, with large improvements of his own. This produced a spirited contro- 
versy between the celebrated Dr. Priestley and himself, which was conducted, on the 
part of both these scholars, in the spirit of true science, resulting in a permanent 
friendship between them, which continued throughout the life of the latter. 

The " State Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Manufactures, and the 
Useful Arts," owes its origin to the persevering eilbrts of Dr. Mitchell and his com- 
peers in scientific efforts. Chancellor Livingston and Simeon De Witt ; and in 1796, 
under its direction, he completed a mineralogical survey of the state, the published 
report of which greatly enriched the scientific literature of the day. The following 
year, in connection with Dr. Miller and E. H. Smith, Esq., he aided in the estab- 
lishment of the " New York Medical Repository," the editorial department of which 
he assumed, and successfully discharged for more than sixteen years. 

In 1807, the " College of Physicians and Surgeons" was established in the city 
of New York, and Dr. Mitchell was invited to assume the professorship of chemistry, 
which invitation he declined, and in the year following he was elected to the chair 
of natural history in the same institution. This professorship, so congenial to his 
tastes, he accepted, and for twelve years discharged its duties with gi'eat acceptance 
to the regents as well as the students. On the reorganization of the college, in 1820, 
he was chosen professor of materia medica and botany, whose duties he discharged 
with eminent success until 1826, when the difficulties between the regents and the 
professors resulted in the establishment of the " Rutger's Medical College," in which 
institution he became one of the vice presidents. 

Notwithstanding the numerous and constant demands of his various professor- 
ships, and the attention he gave to the journal over whose columns he presided. Dr. 
Mitchell entered quite largely into the business of a politician, never becoming a 
mere partisan, but legislating with a wise view to the promotion of science and 
knowledge. In the state legislature his energetic course aided greatly in the passage 
of those memorable bills embracing that glorious system of internal improvements 
.) ' editable to the great State of New York. Livingston and Fulton found in him 
;,. ible advocate and unfailing friend, in their laudable efforts to establish steam 
navigation. Both in the state legislature and in Congress, whither he was after- 
wards sent, in the Senate and the lower house of Congress, by his efforts in favor 
of every measure including the good of the public, he received the approbation of 
the wise and good, and got to himself a name honorable among his fellows and 
respected abroad. 

In 1799, Dr. Mitchell called to aid and comfort him in his laborious life the 
society and friendship of the amiable daughter of Samuel Ackerly, Esq., Mrs. 
Catherine Cook, who shared his toils and honors until his death, which occurred, in 
the city of New York, on the 7th of September, 1831, in the sixty-seventh year of 
his age. His remains were followed to their last resting-place by a large concourse 
of his fellow-citizens, who honored him in life and mourned him in death. 




MAJOR GENERAL ALEXANDER MACOMB. 



ALEXANDER MACOMB was born at Detroit, Michigan, on the 3d of April, 
1782. While yet a child his father removed to New York, and when he was 
eight years of age he was sent to school, in Newark, New Jersey, under charge of 
Dr. Ogden. While here he was chosen to the command of a mimic troop, com- 
posed of the boys of the school, and it is said that he wore his honors with remark- 
able dignity. The military spirit born in the baby-soldier never died out of him. 
In 1798, he joined a select company of rangers, which offered its services to govern- 
ment, which was then taking active measures to repel the expected French invasion, 
with which the country was threatened. Leaving this corps, he was appointed, in 
1799, to a cornetcy. Reconciliation with France having taken place, his services 
were not required ; but resolving to pursue a military life, he spared no pains to 
perfect himself in military knowledge, and on the disbanding of the army he was 
among the few officers retained in the regular service of the government. He was 
commissioned as second lieutenant of the dragoons, and sent to Philadelphia on the 
recruiting service. 

When his troops were raised, he marched to the Cherokee country to join Gen- 
eral Wilkinson. After a year's service his troops were disbanded, and he was ordered 

40 



580 MAJOR GENERAL ALEXANDER MACOMB. 

to West Point, to join a corps of engineers recently raised by government, and was 
appointed adjutant of that important post. Here his scholastic qualities came in 
play, for he was chosen judge advocate of several courts martial. By his judicious 
management of these cases he attracted the attention of government, and was or- 
dered to compile a code of regulations for the conduct of courts martial, which code 
still prevails in the army of the United States. 

In 1805, he was appointed captain of a corps of engineers, and was sent to the 
seaboard to superintend the erection of the fortifications ordered by Congress to be 
erected for the defence of the country. In 1808, he was promoted to the rank of 
major ; and in 1811, he was advanced to a lieutenant colonelcy, and called to head 
quarters to superintend the forming of the army which was raised to defend the 
country in 1812. 

When the war actually raged along our coast and the inside boundaries of our 
country, Macomb was promoted to the rank of colonel, and given in command of 
the third regiment of infantry. He joined Wilkinson on our Canadian frontier, and 
shared the reverses and misfortunes of that unlucky campaign. In January, 1814, 
he was elevated to the post of brigadier general, and was appointed to the command 
of the army on the east side of Lake Champlain. On the 11th of September, he, 
in conjunction with Macdonough on the lake, won that most brilliant victory over 
Sir George Provost and the British fleet, in the battle of Plattsburg. This victory 
infused universal joy throughout the country, and honors and thanks were every 
where voted Macdonough and Macomb. The president conferred on the latter a 
major general's commission. 

This had the effect of raising to the utmost pitch of enthusiasm Congress and the 
country, and, doubtless, of hastening the tardy movements at Ghent. The nego- 
tiations reached a speedy conclusion, and peace was promulgated. 

On the close of the war he was ordered to assume the command of the military 
post at Detroit, which he held until 1821, when he was called to Washington to 
assume the head of the engineer department, and on the death of Major General 
Brown, the commander-in-chief of the army, he was appointed to that vacancy. 




ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. 



JOHN HUGHES, present archbishop of the city of New York, was born in the 
north of Ireland, of honest but obscure parentage, in the year 1798. At the 
age of seventeen he came to this country, and engaged in his preparatory studies 
for the office of priest. Having spent seven years at the College of Mount St. Ma- 
ry, at Emmitsburg, Maryland, he was ordained priest. Soon after receiving orders 
he went to the city of Philadelphia to preside over a parish, to the care of which he 
had been ordered by the archbishop. Here he became popular as an eloquent divine 
and an active citizen. 

In 1830, he received a challenge from Rev. Dr. Breckenridge, a distinguished Pres- 
byterian divine, to a public discussion of their respective dogmas. He accepted it, 
and the discussion was carried on in the newspapers. Afterwards the same ques- 
tions were orally discussed by the parties. 

In 1838, Mr. Hughes was appointed bishop of the diocese of New York, and re- 
moved his residence to that city the same year. Here he set himself, with great 
vigor, to the work of reform in the Catholic church, and embroiled himself in a bit- 
ter controversy with several prominent laymen of his church. He persevered in his 
efforts, however, and had the satisfaction of witnessing the full success of his meas- 
ures, and the entire restoration of harmony in the various parishes of his see. 



582 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. 

In 1840, the Catholics came into collision with the authorities and citizens of New 
York on the subject of the common schools, and Bishop Hughes entered into a full 
discussion of the subject, asserting that " the public schools of New York were of a 
sectarian character, and that thus the whole Catholic community were wronged, by- 
being compelled to support schools to which they could not conscientiously send 
their children." This discussion, at first conducted in the newspapers, was after- 
wards transferred to the Common Council rooms, and was conducted on the part of 
the Catholics by the bishop, who won for himself great credit by the urbane and 
catholic spirit in which he performed his duty on that important occasion. 

During this controversy Bishop Hughes addressed to the mayor a long letter, giving 
a history of himself since he became a citizen of America, an extract of which we 
will insert as a specimen of his style, and as throwing light upon the course he has 
pursued : — 

" It is twenty-seven years since I came to this country. I became a citizen as 
soon as my majority of age and other circumstances permitted. My early ances- 
tors were from Wales; and very probably shared, with Strongbow and his com- 
panions, in the plunder which rewarded the first successful invaders of lovely but 
unfortunate Ireland. Of course, from the time of their conversion from paganism, 
they were Catholics. You, sir, who must be acquainted with the melancholy an- 
nals of religious intolerance in Ireland, may remember, that when a traitor to his 
country, and, for what I know, to his creed also, wished to make his peace to the 
Irish government of Queen Elizabeth, MacMahon, Prince of Monaghan, the trai- 
tor's work, which he volunteered to accomplish, was " io root out the ivhole sept of 
the Hitg-heses.^^ He did not, hov/ever, succeed in destroying them, although he 
"rooted them out" — proving, as a moral for future times, that persecution can- 
not always accomplish what it proposes. In the year 1817, a descendant of the sept 
of the Hugheses came to the United States of America. He was the son of a 
farmer of moderate but comfortable means. He landed on these shores friendless, 
and with but a few guineas in his purse. He never received of the charity of any 
man without repaying ; he never had more than a few dollars at a time ; he never 
had a patron, in the church or out of it ; and it is he who has the honor to ad- 
dress you now, as Catholic bishop of New York." 

In 1850, Dr. Hughes was appointed, by Pope Pius IX., archbishop of New York, 
which was accordingly raised to the dignity of a metropolitan see ; and since his 
inauguration he has been an active citizen, and secured the respect of the inhabit- 
ants of the mighty city where he resides. 




JOHN P. DURBIN, D. D. 



THIS eminent Methodist divine was born in Bourbon county, Kentucky, on the 
10th day of October, 1800. His early education was sadly neglected, and when 
he was fourteen years of age he was indented to a cabinet maker, with whom he 
faithfully served out his time. At eighteen he experienced religion, and soon after 
felt that he was called to preach. He immediately united with the church, and the 
same month received a license to preach, and in all his unfitness was sent to the 
Limestone circuit. But a strong desire for knowledge seized him, and finding in 
possession of an old Dutchman a copy of " Clarke's Commentary," in numbers, he 
borrowed them, and slipped two numbers at a time into a tin canister about four 
inches in diameter, and lashed it on behind his saddle, and thus carried it round his 
circuit. He soon added Wesley's and Fletcher's works ; and these, with his Bible 
and Hymn Book, formed his library. 

The next year, Mr. Durbin was sent to Indiana, where he procured a grammar, 
and commenced his studies with great zeal, " studying the rules on horseback as he 
rode his circuit." This year it was his happiness to make the acquaintance and 
secure the friendship of the late Dr. Ruter, who encouraged him in his studies and 



584 



JOHN P. DURBIN, D. D 



lent him the Latin and Greek grammars, and such other books as he needed. After 
being stationed at Hamilton, Ohio, and Lebanon, he next went to Cincinnati, and 
'vas admitted to the Cincinnati College, with the personal countenance of Dr. Euter 
and the late President Harrison. Here he finished his collegiate course, and was 
admitted to the degree of A. M., without being required to take first the degree of A. B. 

" During these five or six years his habits of study were unremitting. He invaria- 
bly rose at five o'clock in summer and six in winter, and sat down to his books ; he 
as invariably retired at nine and ten o'clock at night to rest ; he performed all the duties 
of a minister of the gospel, giving the morning, up to twelve o'clock, or to the time 
of departing for his appointment, if on a circuit, to study ; the afternoon to pastoral 
visitation and the classes, and the evening to prayer and other meetings." 

On taking his degree, Mr. Durbin was appointed to the vacant chair of the pro- 
fessorship of languages in the Augusta College, Kentucky. In 1829, he was put in 
nomination for the chaplaincy of the United States Senate, and was defeated by the 
casting vote of Mr. Clay. Two years afterward, in 1831, without Mr. Durbin's 
knowledge, and in his absence, the Senate, by a large vote, elected him to that office, 
which he filled with perfect acceptance. 

" In 1832, he was elected ])rofessor of natural sciences in the Wesleyan University, 
but resigned in 1833, upon being elected editor of the " Christian Advocate and Jour- 
nal." In 1834, without being consulted, and without his knowledge that it was intended, 
he was elected president of Dickinson College. In 1842, he had leave of absence 
from the college to visit Europe and the East, which he did, relinquishing his salary 
during his absence of eighteen months. He returned in 1843, was a member of the 
General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844, and took a prom- 
nient part in the great struggle which divided the church. In 1844, he published his 
• Observations in Europe,' and in 1845, his ' Observations in the East.' These books 
are still in demand, an edition of each having been printed within a year or two ; 
the first has been reprinted in two editions in Great Britain. He retired from the 
college in 1845, and subsequently had charge of stations in Philadelphia, and also 
travelled the Philadelphia district. In 1850, he was appointed unanimously, by the 
bishops of the Methodist Episcopal church, missionary secretary, in the place of 
Dr. Pitman, who resigned on account of ill health. The General Conference of 
1852 reappointed him to the same post." 

Dr. Durbin has travelled extensively, both at home and abroad, and has published 
his " Observations of Travel," in very readable volumes. Besides the degree of 
Doctor in Divinity which he received from his own college, he has been elected a 
member of many literary and scientific associations, among which may be mentioned 
the Academy of Natural Science, Philadelphia ; the Royal Society of Northern An- 
tiquarians, Copenhagen, Denmark ; and the American Oriental Society. 

As a preacher. Dr. Durbin holds a very high rank, and the " National Magazine'' 
expresses its belief that he is the most interesting and eft'ective preacher in the 
denomination to which he belongs. 




MISS HARRIET FARLEY. 



WITHIN the jDresent quarter of a century a new era in literature has opened 
on the world — literature among the spindles. About twelve years ago 
there emerged from "the mills" in Lowell, Massachusetts, an unostentatious jour- 
nal, very thin and very small, called the "Lowell Offering," the bantling of "the 
girls in the mills," edited by a factory girl, and filled with contributions from the pens 
of factory girls, who, amidst their constant occupation, contrived to steal time from 
their sleep to perform this gratifying labor. Among these contributors was the 
young lady whose name stands at the head of this article, who speedily became, 
first the editor, and then the sole proprietor, and who contributed more largely than 
all others to fill the columns of the Offering, which has become not only the object 
of curiosity, but of respect and admiration, in the best circles of society, at home 
and abroad. Indeed, its popularity is greater in England than at home, having pro- 
duced a sensation in the literary circles there that no other American journal has 
done. 

Harriet Farley is the daughter of a clergyman, and was born in Claremont, 
New Hampshire. Her parents were of the genuine New Hampshire stock, and both 
*hey and their ancestors were highly respectable and religious. When she was six 



586 MISS HARRIET FARLEY. 

years of age her father removed to Atkinson, New Hampshire, an inconsiderable 
town, and quite removed from the basy world. Her health had always been deli- 
cate, and her application to her studies were such as to threaten her life, being com- 
pelled to pursue them, often, on her bed. 

Having been designed as a teacher by her father, and having a natural and un- 
conquerable repugnance to that mode of life, she decided to choose her path in life 
for herself. " I came to Lowell," she says, speaking of her leaving home, in a letter 
to Mrs. Hale, and to which letter we are mainly indebted for the substance of this 
article, " determined that, if I had my own living to obtain, I would get it in my 
own way ; that I would read, think, and ivrite ivhen I could, without restraint; that, 
if I did well, I would have the credit of it ; if ill, my friends should be relieved from 
the blame, if not from the stigma." 

And to Lowell came this stout-hearted girl, and entered one of the mills of that 
busy city. There she labored, making good wages, and devoting all her earnings, 
save what were necessary for her bare support, to the eking out of the pittance her 
father received as a salary, towards the support of a large family of children, assist- 
ing in the education of one of her brothers, and helping him honorably to get through 
college and prepare for his profession. 

Meanwhile, in 1841, the Offering had been started, and mainly sustained by the 
energy and encouragement of Miss Farley. Her contributions gradually attracted 
the notice of some literary friends, who encouraged her to proceed. She shrunk 
from the responsibility of editing the Offering, but consented at the urgent request 
of her friends, and at length assumed the proprietorship with the same timidity. 
But she succeeded in both these departments, and not only made her journal re- 
spectable among the many ladies' journals which throng the land, but, better still, 
she has made it a source of a comfortable revenue to her for the remainder of her 
life. 

We cannot forbear quoting the account of the manner in which Miss Farley con- 
ducts the publishing department of her business — it is from her own pen. "I do 
all the publishing, editing, canvassing, and, as it is bound in my office, I can, in a 
hurry, help fold, cut covers, stitch, etc. I have a little girl who helps me in the 
stitching, folding, etc. ; the rest, after it comes from the printer's hand, is all my own 
work." She is indeed an operative. 

In 1847, she published a little volume of selections from the Offering, entitled 
" Shells from the Strand of the Sea of Genius; " and, in 1849, another selection was 
published in London, with the striking title of " Mind among the Spindles." These 
volumes are very readable books, and do great credit to the talents and character of 
their gifted author. 




HON. JOSIAH QUINCY. 



JOSIAH QUINCY, whose name is forever associated with the prosperity of his 
native city, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, February 4, 1772. After a 
thorough preparatory course in the excellent schools of Boston, at the early age of 
fourteen he was admitted to Harvard College, Cambridge, from which celebrated 
school he was graduated with honor, in 1790. He studied law and opened an of- 
fice in Boston, where he gave so much of his time as wa^ not occupied with the 
affairs of the town, to its practice, for the space of ten years. 

But Mr. Quinoy was a man for the public, and he was soon called into their ser- 
vice. In 1804, he was chosen representative in Congress for the district in which he 
resided, and for eight successive years held that office to the entire satisfaction of his 
constituents, when he declined a reelection, and once more entered upon the duties 
of his profession. But his services could not be dispensed with, and, in 1814, he 
was elected to represent his native state in the Senate of the United States, which 
seat he occupied for five years. This was during the war of 1812, and one of the 
most exciting, as well as critical, periods in the history of o*ur country. During the 
whole angry discussion of the agitating questions arising out of the troubled state 
of the times, he was a marked man. He took ground against the war and the ad- 
ministration, and was one of its most uncompromising opponents. 

41 



588 HON. JOSIAH QUINCY. 

In 1820, Mr. Quincy was chosen representative from Boston, and on the opening 
of the House of Representatives was called on to preside over its deliberations. 
For this office he was peculiarly qualified — prompt, energetic, and decided. 

In 1821, Mr. Quincy was made one of the judges of the Municipal Court in Bos- 
ton, which office he filled only two years, when he was elected, with great unanimity, 
mayor of his native city. He held this important office for six successive years, un- 
til he declined a further election in 1827. It was here that the full vigor of his 
strong intellect, energetic will, and physical activity manifested themselves. He set 
himself to work to rectify the abuses of power, and the deficiencies in the muni- 
cipal laws, with a vigor that was speedily felt in all the municipal pulses, and which 
healthy action is still manifest in the heart of that corporation. His supervision 
was something more than nominal — everything came under his eye. His noble 
horse might be seen, early and late, bearing its vigilant rider through the thorough- 
fares and alleys of the city in all conditions of the weather, and at all hours of the 
day. 

But the great monument of Mr. Quincy's administration is the " Quincy Market," 
so called in honor to his name. This is, without question, the best arranged and 
most expensive market house in Amwica. It is built of granite, and finished 
throughout in the most thorough manner, and is at once an ornament and honor to 
the city. In carrying forward this noble work to its completion, he encountered an 
amount of opposition which might have quailed a heart less stout than his. He 
triumphed, however, over all opposition, and has lived to receive the thanks of every 
good citizen ; and the labor of his hands will live to associate his venerable name 
forever with the growth and prosperity of the great metropolis of New England. 

In December, 1828, Mr. Quincy declined a reelection, and the following month 
was elected to the presidency of Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 
He carried with him into his new. office the same energy and vigor which had 
marked his administration of the municipal affairs of Boston, and the effect of 
which was soon visible in. the university.. He presided over this venerable seat of 
learning until 1845, a period of seventeen years, when he resigned his office and 
retired altogether from public life, having been in the service of the public for more 
than forty years. 

Besides his public duties, Mr. Quincy has made his pen subserve the interests of 
his native city, his country, and humanity. Besides his speeches in Congress, and 
orations on various public occasions, he has published " A Memoir of Josiah Quincy, 
Jr., [his father,] of Massachusetts," in (1825; ) " Centennial Address on the Two 
Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of Boston," (1830 ;) " A History of Har- 
vard University, from 1636 to 1836 ; " " Memoirs of James Grahame," (1846 ;) 
"Memoir of Major Samuel Shaw," (1847;) " History of the Boston Athenaeum," 
(1851 ;) and " A Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston, from 1630 to 
1830," (1852.) 




THEODORIC ROMEYN BECK, M. D. 

EVERY trade and profession has its several departments, all of which require 
separate and peculiar talents. One man who may excel in one branch of his 
business may be altogether inefficient in another. In medicine, there are few men 
who combine all the traits necessary to a perfect physician. These things are better 
understood in Europe than with us, where the various branches of medicine are 
divided into separate and distinct professions. A man may practise skilfully in the 
materia viedica, and be but an indifferent surgeon ; or he may excel in the science 
of compounding, and be ill suited to preside over the education of others. Then, 
besides these, every profession has its literature and its morale, and he may wield a 
pen with elegance and power who would prove but a bungler in the dissecting 
room. The subject of this memoir was, we believe, a respectable practitioner and 
surgeon, but his forte was medical literature. He used his pen, and presided over 
the studies of others, with eminent power and success, and has built himself up a 
fame far more successfully than he could have carved to himself with the mere aid 
of his scalpel. 

Theodoric Romeyn Beck was born at Schenectady, New York, August 11, 
1791. His grandfather, Ben. Theodoric Romeyn, was one of the professors of 



590 THEODORIC ROMEYN BECK, M. D 

theology in the school of the Reformed Dutch church, and was one of the principal 
founders of Union College. Young BecU was fitted for college in the schools of his 
native village under the wise supervision of his grandfather, and entered Union 
College in 1803, from which he was graduated in 1807. 

Deciding upon medicine as a pursuit, he entered the office of Drs. McClelland 
and Low, of Albany, New York, and afterwards tinished his preparation for the 
practice of his profession under the charge of Dr. Hosack, of the city of New York, 
then at the head of the college of physicians and surgeons recently established in 
that city. He was graduated from this institution, in 1811, with the degree of doc- 
tor of medicine, on which he delivered an inaugural discjuisition on the subject of 
insanity. This was a paper indicating great talent, and gave evidence of a thorough 
preparation for the duties of his chosen professsion ; it was afterwards published, and 
won for its author considerable renown. 

Returning immediately to the city of Albany, he opened an office and commenced 
the practice of his profession. In 1813, he delivered the annual address before the 
Society of Arts and Sciences, in Albany, on the mineralogical resources of the 
United States. This was published, and received with great favor in all quarters of 
the Union, and brought our young physician into favorable notoriety. 

In 1815, Dr. Beck was appointed professor of the institutes of medicine, and lec- 
turer on medical jurisprudence in the college of physicians and surgeons for the 
western district of New York. He continued still to reside in Albany and practise 
his profession ; but finding his various duties too much for his health, he determined 
to give up the practice of his profession, and devote himself more exclusively to the 
pursuits of literature. 

In 1817, he was called to preside over the " Albany Academy," an institution of 
high literary standing — a college in all but its name — and occupying a position in 
the world of letters comparing favorably with many of the colleges in our country. 
This field of honorable labor was precisely adapted to his tastes, and the school 
under his care has risen to a high position as an institution of learning. 

Witnessing the prevailing ignorance and apathy in that most important branch of 
his profession, medical jurisprudence, he set himself to work to remedy the de- 
ficiency, as far as might lay in his power, and, in 1823, he gave to the world his 
great work in two volumes, octavo, entitled " Elements of Medical Jurisprudence." 
It created a sensation at that time, and has become a standard work on that subject. 
It confirmed his reputation as a profound scholar and most interesting writer, a rep- 
utation which he has maintained by subsequent publications on subjects kindred to 
his profession. 

Dr. Beck is one of the principal founders of the " Albany Institute," a society of 
scientific and literary gentlemen, whose labors have done much to enlarge the sphere 
of science and enlighten the world. 




HON. JOHN DAVIS. 

rilHE name of John Davis is a synouyine for all that is noble and manly in life 
X —it has passed into byword and proverb, until he is known every where in the 
whole land as " honest John.^' He has attained this fame by a long and uninterrupt- 
ed course of single, straightforward and honest dealing in all the actions of his life. 
Many men who are proof against the ordinary temptations of life cannot resist the 
tergiversations of politics, and become as tortuous and corrupt as the worst among 
mere politicians ; but the subject of this memoir has for thirty years been mixed up 
with the principal political actors of our country, without a soil or smooch — not even 
the mark of the fire is on his moral robes. 

John Davis was born at Northboro', Massachusetts, on the 13th of January, 1787. 
His early life was marked by nothing uncommon, save that the steadfast purity of 
his life began thus early to manifest itself in all his dealings and sports with his 
playmates. He went through the ordinary preparation of rudimentary and academic 
education, and was admitted to Yale CoUe^ in 1808, from which institution he was 
graduated with much credit to himself in 1812, at the comparatively ripe age of 
twenty- five. 

On leaving college, Mr. Davis decided on pursuing the profession of the law, and, 



592 HON.JOHNDAVIS. 

after a due course of legal reading, he opened an office in Worcester, Massachusetts, 
the shire town of his native county, and entered at once upon the duties of his pro- 
fession. Here he soon became known for his excellent good sense and the unselfish 
interest he took in the personal interests of all his clients, never advising litigation, 
unless not only that there was a fair le^al chance for his client, but, at least, a fair 
show of honesty and justice in his claims. 

Rising steadily in his profession, the course of Mr. Davis's life elevated him to a 
high position in the esteem of all who knew him. Without intolerance, he became 
the friend of virtue and a member of the Christian church, and with modest pre- 
tensions his voice, his influence, and his example were ever on the side of all great 
moral reforms. He also took a deep and active interest in all the institutions of his 
adopted town. Education received his fostering care, while the Asylum for the 
Insane and the Antiquarian Society, which had been established in Worcester, be- 
came the objects of his patronage and practical solicitude. 

Mr. Davis commenced his political career, we believe, in 1825, when he was 
elected a member of the United States House of Representatives. He was reelected 
for the next term, and continued to hold his seat in that body for five successive 
years. Here he soon experienced the proud satisfaction of knowing that the weight 
of moral character was more than that of mere political influence. He commanded 
the entire respect of both parties, and is perhaps the only man who has spent nearly 
a quarter of a century in one or the other branch of Congress without having ac- 
quired the fixed enmity of a single member. Without hesitation or demur, he 
assumed the whig cause, and whenever he rose to address the chair he commanded 
the silent and respectful attention of all parts of the house. But his influence as a 
man was far greater than that of his position. His presence and his words were 
like oil on the angry billows of personal contention, and angry combatants would 
soften at his words when all others were without effect. 

In 1834, he was chosen goveraior of his native state, and reelected in 1835. At 
the close of this last year he was el'ected to the United States Senate, and took his 
seat in that body the winter following. In 1841, he was again chosen governor of 
Massachusetts, which office he held for three successive terms, and on the death of 
Senator Bates he was elected to fill the unexpired term of that gentleman in the 
United States Senate. At the close of this term he was reelected, for a term of 
six years, to the same body. His term of service has but just expired, and he has 
retired to the bosom of his family to spend the evening of his days free from the 
entanglements of politics, and the labors and vexations of public office, and to re- 
pose on his well-earned laurels. 




THE PKOPHET. 

T^'^h!^ '^''u M "' T: r""^ '^'' aboriginals who acquired the sobngu.. . 
sl.vv P7.,^f'/-h belonging to a separate tribe : .i^., Ells.k^va•taL, i\.e 

is ofT'l ;. t T\.*'' ^^"^"°^^' ^"' ^-h-P^-^ee.such, the Winnebago. 
Ihis notice '"" "''"'" ''^"'^'' ^^''^' ^^'"^' ^^^* '''^ ^'^ t° «P^^k in 

wn^'rr'r"'''u ^''' ^'•^^^^^••^f Black Hawk, and the prime instigator of the 
war which bears the name of this chief, was born near the centre of t1,e State of 
Illinois on Rock River, about the year 1780. The blood of two tribes ran in his 
veins t e Winnebago and the Sac or Sank tribes. Of his early life we have been 
unable to learn more than that from a child he was an unmitigated savage. Cool 
and shrewd, cruel and revengeful, he came to be a fitting tool in the execution of 
the most atrocious purposes of his savage brother. Black Hawk. A relentless foe to 
the whites, he pursued them with the most untiring zeal, forgetting to eat or sleep 
in his eager thirst for their blood ; and the quick bullet from his cerlin rifle, or the 
keen edge of his tomahawk, was the only mercy he was known ever to exercise to- 
wards the poor victims which fell into his hands. 

He is thus described by one of the officers of the American army, at the time he 



594 THE PROPHET. 

was taken prisoner, together with Black Hawk : " He has a large, broad face, short, 
blunt nose, large, full eyes, broad mouth, thick lips, with a full head of hair. He 
wore a white cloth headdress, which rose several inches above the top of his head; 
the whole man exhibiting a deliberate savageness ; not that he would seem to de- 
light in honorable war or fair fight, but marking him as the very high priest of 
assassination or secret murder. He carried in one hand a pipe of huge dimensions, 
highly and gaudily ornamented with the feathers of the duck, inwrought with beads 
and feathers of all the colors of the rainbow." 

The grand idea of the utter extermination of the whites from the land of the red 
men originated in his active brain ; and it was through the influence of his mighty 
genius that the Black Hawk war, as it is called, was commenced and carried for- 
ward to its disastrous conclusion. He was a man of little eloquence, but he made 
amends for its absence by the most circumventing and insinuating cunning. Black 
Hawk, the head chief of the Sac and Fox nation, was the nominal head, but Wah- 
pe-kee-such was the soul of that sanguinary contest. He travelled the country 
through, from the Gulf to the Rocky Mountains, stirring up the various tribes to 
mutiny and massacre ; and when the hour came for the stroke of war, his hand was 
reddest among the savage hordes. 

Like his brother prophets, the Shaicanee and the Seminole, he laid claim to super- 
natural powers, and pretended to have revelations from the Great Spirit. He gained 
such complete ascendency over the mind of Black Hawk as to make that credulons 
prince believe that he would become the glorious instrument, in the hand of Prov- 
idence, of relieving the whole country of their white-faced enemies, who were so fast 
encroaching on their paternal acres, and desecrating the ashes of their brave ances- 
tors. In the same manner, the shrewd Tecumseh was imposed upon by the Shawa- 
nee prophet. Thus these infernal impostors lighted up a conflagration whose lurid 
glare filled the whole country with consternation, and which was not qaenched until 
these arch-deceivers were safely delivered into the hands of our soldiery. 

At the final treaty with the Sacs and Foxes, in 1833, the Prophet and Black 
Hawk were in disgrace, and the Americans would not treat with them. They were 
deposed, and Keokuck was made chief of this double tribe, with whom all the sub- 
sequent negotiations were conducted. After the convention, the tribe was removed 
to the west side of the Mississippi, and the prophet, after making, with his brethren, 
the tour of the Union, took up his residence in the same village with Keokuck, on 
the Des Moines River, about seventy miles from its confluence with the Mississippi. 




HON. JOHN FAIRFIELD. 



JOHN FAIRFIELD was born at Saco, Maine, on the 30th of January, 1797. 
The advantages afforded him for the acquisition of an education were limited ; 
a deficiency which was supplied, however, by his thirst for knowledge and a most 
faithful use of all the means within his reach. His childhood was passed in his 
native village, like that of most other children; a portion of it given to play and 
household errands, and the balance to the summer and winter schools. When he 
was of sufficient age to think of the business of life, he went into one of the village 
stores and commenced his apprenticeship of trade. Here he had considerable leisure, 
which was employed in storing his mind with general literature. He also gave some 
attention to the classics. 

As he approached manhood, Mr. Fairfield began to seek for a wider sphere of 
action, and decided to study the profession of the law, to which he gave himself 
with great zeal until he was prepared for admission to the bar in 1826. He now 
opened an office in Saco, and soon found that he had as much business as he could 
attend to, and rose rapidly in the estimation of his fellow-townsmen, as weU as of 
all the members of the bar with whom his business brought him into connection. In 
1832, he was appointed reporter of the decisions of the supreme court. 



598 • HON. JOHN FAIRFIELD. 

In 1835, J\Ir. Fairfield was elected to a seat in the United States house of repre- 
sentatives. This rapid elevation was, doubtless, owing to the prompt and active zeal 
he had manifested in the political action of his native town and state, and the ready 
tact he had uniformly manifested in whatever he had undertaken. His great urban- 
ity, also, which gave him a most winning address, gained the good will of all who 
knew him, and secured him many votes. While in congress he was remarkable for 
the method and arrangement, as well as the assiduity and activity, with which he 
discharged all the duties which devolved upon him ; and he gave his constituency 
such entire satisfaction that they sent him to a second term of congress in 1837-8. 

In 1842, the people of Maine called iMr. Fairfield to fill the gubernatorial chair of 
that state ; and, in 1843, he was reelected to the same office. It may with truth 
be said, we think, that the state of Maine has scarcely ever had so popular a chief. 
Dignified and fearless in the discharge of his duties, there was nothing in the man- 
ner of the doing to give ofience to the most crusty politician of the opposite school, 
or to disturb the tastes of the most fastidious. 

Governor Fakfield did not, however, serve out the full term for which he was the 
second time so unanimously elected. A vacancy having occurred in the senate of 
the United States, by the resignation of Mr. Williams, he was elected to a seat in 
that exalted body in March, 1842, for the unexpired term of three years. He served 
out Mr. Williams's term with so much acceptance, that, in 1845, he was again a 
candidate and was again elected. No one on the floor of the senate stood in higher 
esteem than the subject of this notice. Senators of all shades of political opinions 
held him in high respect as a sound statesman and a most accomplished gentleman. 
He took a practical and common-sense view of all questions that came before that 
body ; and no one doubted but that the interests of his constituents, of every polit- 
ical party, was the great object which he aimed to secure. He took broad and Hb- 
eral views of every subject in hand, and would not allow his party poHtics wholly to 
obscure his sense of justice and the fitness of things. 

But in the midst of this useful and highly honorable career, governor Fairfield was 
suddenly cut off". He died on the 24th of December, 1847, in the fifty-first year of his 
age. His death was occasioned by an unsuccessful surgical operation which he was 
induced to undergo for a local complaint. A writer in the " American Almanac " 
thus closes his notice of this celebrated man : " He was distinguished for strong sense, 
sound judgment, and practical views on all svibjects to which he had given his atten- 
tion. He had great steadiness of purpose and a good share of moral and physical 
courage in the discharge of his public duties, and was conscientious and sincere in 
nis views of the responsibility belonging to political trusts." 




BRIGADIER GENERAL Z. M. PIKE. 



ZEBULON MONTGOMERY PIKE, a brave and gallant general officer in 
the army of the United States, was born at Lamberton, New Jersey, on the 5th 
of January, 1779. The means of his early education were exceedingly limited ; but 
the deficiency was made up by his own perseverance and diligence. When he 
reached maturity he placed himself under private instruction and soo)i acquired a 
very respectable education. He became a proficient in the Latin, French, and Span- 
ish languages, and highly skilled in the science of mathematics. He also took great 
delight in the study of astronomy, which after\vards became a source of unalloyed 
satisfaction to him on his long and weary marches in the wilderness and his exposed 
bivouacs in many a sleepless night. 

In 1805, the government of the United States coming in possession of Louisiana, 
then recently ceded by the French, it was determined to fit out several exploring ex- 
peditions to ascertain its boundaries, and the geographical, topographical, mineral, 
and hygeian character of the new^ acquisition. Under the administration of Jefferson, 
one expedition, under command of captains Lewis and Clarke, was sent to explore 
the unknown sources of the Missouri river. Another expedition was fitted out at ^hp 



600 BRIGADIER GENERAL Z. M. PIKE. 

same time to perform a similar duty on the Mississippi river. To the command of 
this expedition president Jefferson called the subject of this memoir, with the title of 
captain. 

It was in the month of August, 1805, that captain Pike embarked at St. Louis 
upon his arduous and perilous voyage. "We can have faint conceptions, in this age 
of steam appliances, of the amount of toil and peril connected with the ascent of an 
unexplored stream, running through two thousand miles of unbroken wilderness in- 
habited by savage tribes of Indians and overrun with wild beasts. The long bat- 
teaux had to be dragged against the rapid stream by men on the banks, or " polled " 
by the hands on the boats ; and when they reached a rapid, the boats had to be car- 
ried around it on the shoulders of the men. Two full years were thus occupied in 
this perilous undertaking, the winters being passed in the mountains, where their 
immediate wants were supplied by the rifles and traps of the party. 

On the return of captain Pike from this expedition, in 1807, he was immediately 
appointed to the command of a similar expedition to explore the interior of Louisi- 
ana and the tributaries of the ]\Iississippi. Although the country and climate of 
the territory explored on this occasion were not so rugged and uneven, yet the dan- 
gers were of equal magnitude. The attacks of the savage foe might, with careful 
walching and precaution, be guarded against ; but no sagacity or courage was proof 
against the insidious attacks of the malaria of that unhealthy climate. At one time 
nearly the whole expedition were down with the bilious diseases incident to the cli- 
mate, and captain Pike himself had a narrow escape from death from the same cause. 
But he successfully accomplished his mission, and on his return received the thanks 
of the government, and was promoted to the rank of major. Afterwards, in 1810, he 
was honored by a colonel's commission. He also published a narrative of his two 
expeditions, which were extensively read in the United States. 

In 1813, he was appointed a brigadier general, and was selected to command the 
American forces in an expedition against York, the capital of Upper Canada. " On 
the 27th of April he arrived before York at the head of his troops and attacked the 
enemy's works in person. The fire of the enemy was soon silenced, and, at the mo- 
ment that a flag of surrender was expected, a terrible explosion took place from the 
British magazine, wliich had previously been prepared for this purpose. An immense 
quantity of large stones wer« thrown in every direction, one of which struck the 
general, the wound from which proved mortal after lingering a few hours. In the 
mean while the British standard was brought to him, which he made a sign to have 
placed under his head, and then expired without a groan." 

Thus, in the early prime of manhood, fell at the post of duty this gallant officer, 
in the thirty-fifth year of his age. 




HON. W. A. GRAHAM. 



THE subject of this .sketch is descended from a long line of honorable men who 
have been distinguished for their soldiership, learning, and statesmanship. Some 
of the proudest families of Great Britain bear the name, and several of the family were 
distinguished by having conferred on them the honors of knighthood. Several of the 
female members of this ancient family were justly celebrated for their beauty and 
intellectual brilliancy, and at whose shrine many a proud cavalier was fain to do 
homage. Although we do not find this name in the list of the passengers of the, 
Mayflower, yet it is among the earliest records of Virginia and the Carolinas, as indi- 
cating the leaders in the establishment of civilization on the savage shores of this 
western hemisphere ; and from that day to this it has figured largely among the 
statesmen and heroes of the nation. 

William A. Graham was born in North Carolina in the first year of the present 
century. His boyhood exhibited a remarkable degi-ee of talent, and he early became 
fond of reading and study. After securing the advantages to be derived from the 
best schools in his neighborhood, he entered college with many signs of promise, 
which the honorable rank Mnth which he was graduated did not falsify. 



602 HON. W. A. GRAHAM. 

On leaving college, Mr. Graham entered upon the study of the law, and after a 
faithful clerkship opened an office for its practice in Hillsboro', in his native state. 
He soon gained a highly respectable standing in his profession, and was honored 
with several minor offices of trust, until 1841, when he was elected to the high honor 
of representing his state in the United States senate. He took his seat in that au- 
gust body in the session of 1841, and remained there until 1813. His senatorial 
career, though brief, was marked by the most devoted attention to the business of that 
high place, as well as by his highly dignified bearing towards the members of that 
branch of our national legislature. He won for himself a high reputation as a states- 
man and scholar, and showed himself familiar with the forms and elements of 
government, as well as possessing a thorough acquaintance of its history. 

In 1844, Mr. Graham, at the call of his fellow-citizens, retired from the halls of the 
national councils to take charge of the government of his native state, and took his 
seat in the gubernatorial chair of North Carolina in the autumn of the same year. 
Having now reached the mature time of his life, and having added to his rich stock 
of experimental knowledge, by a wide and judicious course of reading, he was pre- 
pared duly to estimate the duties and responsibilities of his high office, and he accord- 
ingly entered upon his new career full of promise. As was to have been expected, 
his administration was an exceedingly popular one, and at the end of the first term 
he was called by acclamation to remain in the office another term of two years. 
Responding to the call with extreme reluctance, he served his course of two years 
with the greatest acceptance to his party as well as to his political opponents. 

In the spring of 1849, Governor Graham retired from the office, declining to offer 
himself any more as a candidate, and in the year following he was honored with 
a call from President Fillmore to preside at the head of the navy department. He 
remained secretary of the navy throughout the administration of Mr. Fillmore, when he 
retired to the quiet of his home in Hillsboro'. But he was not permitted long to 
enjoy the peaceful pursuits of his profession. In 1852, the " National Whig Conven- 
tion," after a protracted and stormy debate, nominated General Winfield Scott for 
president of the United States, and associated with his name that of W. A. Graham, 
as nominee for the office of vice president. But neither the doubtful popularity of the 
hero of Mexico, nor the decidedly popular standing of Mr. Graham, proved sufficient to 
secure the high honors for which they aspired, and their opponents, Pierce and King, 
were elected by a most triumphant majority. 

Since this time Mr. Graham has lived among his friends in the enjoyment of his 
well-earned fame. Few men are more popular in their own state, and none more 
deservedly so, as he is held in very high esteem by all his fellow-citizens of all parties 
in politics throughout the United States. He is still in the very prime of his useful 
life; and we may confidently expect that he will be yet called to act a prominent part 
m the coming drama of this great nation. 




MISS CATHARINE M. SEDGWICK. 



IT may be accounted folly or superstition in us, but we nevertherless believe the 
place of birth has some influence on the character and destiny of the person born. 
A dolt might be born in paradise, and grow up a dolt; and true genius would thrive in 
pine barrens, from its power to ascend from the real to the ideal; but when genius 
is born among all the kindly and kindling influences of the outer world, its growth 
will be healthier and all its faculties develop into more true and equal proportions. 
The amor patria; of the man born on Bunker Hill, Saratoga, or Yorktown is likely 
to be purer and warmer than that of the man born in the deep fastnesses of the Al- 
leghanies or the dull swamps of the Seminoles. 

The birthplace of Miss Catharine Maria Sedgwick was among the wild and 
romantic hills of Berkshire county, in the state of Massachusetts, every one of which 
is a sealed volume of romance in the history of the country and its aboriginal inhab- 
itants, and an almost perfect ideal of beauty in the landscape of the earth. It was 
here, by the winding and romantic Housatonic, — the paradise of the Indian homes, 
— that many a scene was enacted, the very traditions of which stir our cold and dull 
blood, quickening our sensibilities into new life and awakening our sympathies to 

43 



604 IM I S S CATHARINE M. SEDGWICK. 

the strongest activity. Here is " Sacrifice Rock," where the sublime Magawisca, like 
another Pocahontas, sprang upon the neck of the doomed Evelyn just as the de- 
scending knife of the old chief, her father, was entering his breast. Here is the 
mossy cave where " Crazy Bet" passed her hours, high on the shelving precipice of 
the mountain, and where she trolled forth those prophetic ditties which disturbed the 
silence of the night, and filled many a timid bosom with a superstitious fear of ap- 
proaching evil. Here, too, are laid many of the scenes which have thrilled so many 
young souls as they have pored over the witching pages of " Leather Stocking," 
" Redwood," or " Hope Leslie." 

Among scenes so picturesque, and beautiful, and classical was this sweet poet and 
vATiter brought into this world; growing up among them and developing and ripen- 
ing those rare talents which have made her one of America's most gifted daughters 
and happiest instructors of her race. She sprung from one of the oldest and noblest 
famiUes of the Old Bay State, her father's grandsire having served with distinction 
in the army of Cromwell, and her own grandfather being a general officer in that 
glorious old continental army which achieved our independence. Her father, the 
Hon. Theodore Sedgwick, of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, who, at the time of his 
death, was one of the judges of the supreme court of Massachusetts, was at one 
time speaker of the house of representatives, and subsequently a senator in the con- 
gress of the United States. 

Of Miss Sedgwick's childhood we know little ; and, as she is stiU among the act- 
ors of our own circle, it Avould not become us to speak with much freedom of her 
personal history. It is of her character as a public ^vl•iter that alone we feel at lib- 
erty to speak. She early manifested rare excellence in written composition. Her 
first work, the "New England Tale," was published in 1822. It established at once 
her reputation as a writer, and the public anxiously waited the appearance of her 
next book. This was a novel, in two volumes, entitled " Redwood," and was given 
to the public in 1827. It was received and read with enthusiasm by the American 
pviblic, and was republished in England, Spain, and France. Since this time she has 
written on various topics, and sent to the press many interesting volumes, among 
which may be noticed the following : " Hope Leslie," in 1827 ; " Clarence," in 1830 ; 
"The Linwoods," in 1835; "Live and let Live," in 1838, and other little books on 
political economy ; " A Huguenot Family ; " besides many others of nearly an equal 
value. 

Our limits do not allow an extended criticism upon Miss Sedgwick's published 
works. Enough to say that she writes with great ease and freedom, and even ele- 
gance. Occasionally thoughts of deep vitality af)pear in "words that burn," and 
never a thought or a word that woula dishonor her claim upon innocence and purity. 
She aims to improve while she studies to amuse, and the young and the old alike 
pore over the silvery sentences of her pen with pleasure and with profit. 




MAJOR GENERAL JACOB BROWN. 



THIS great military captain was born in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, in 1775. 
He was descended from George Brown, an English emigrant, before the estab- 
lishment of the colony of Pennsylvania, a man of great intellectual and moral as 
well as physical endowments. His father, as well as all the intermediate generations 
in a direct line, were remarkable men. Jacob, the subject of this sketch, exhibited 
no striking traits of character until he had arrived at the age of fifteen, when his 
father, by some unfortunate speculation, lost all his large property. From this point 
he assumed a new character, and commenced his conflict with the world with a res- 
olute heart and the strong purpose of success. 

From this period young Brown followed the honorable vocation of school teaching, 
occasionally relieved by the active duties of land surveying, until the opening of the 
present centiuy, when he purchased a large tract of wild land on the shore of lake 
Ontario, and settled thereon with his young family, which was not long after in- 
creased by the addition of his father and mother, who henceforth ma^e it their home. 
He built the first civilized cabin within thirty miles of the lake, in Jefferson county, 
and on the banks of the St. Lawrence river. Naming his new settlement Brownville, 



606 MAJOR GENERAL JACOB BROWN. 

he had the satisfaction of witnessing the result of his own active measures in its 
rapid growth. 

In 1809, Mr. Brown was appointed colonel of the militia; and, in 1811, he was 
promoted to the rank of general of brigade. In the following year congress declared 
war against Great Britain. Immediately he found himself in the very midst of the 
most active scenes of its earliest operations. He was at once called on to defend 
that portion of our frontier bordering on the lake for a length of two hundred miles. 
This duty he discharged with credit, when the time of his service expiring he re- 
turned to the peaceful avocations of his farm. Congress immediately oflfered him 
the command of a regiment in the regular army, which he declined. When, how- 
ever, our little army at Sackett's Harbor, under the command of the gallant Backus, 
colonel of dragoons, was threatened by the approach of a large body of the English, 
he hastened to their relief, and was able successfully to defend the place against a 
force double that of his own, and to drive the enemy precipitately to his boats with 
a loss of nearly half that of his own numbers. His own loss was quite inconsid- 
erable, although the valiant Backus was among the slain. 

In the spring of 1814, congress conferred on Brown the rank of major general, and 
placed him in command of the northern division of the army. Nothing could be 
more gloomy than the state of the whole country at this period. He found the army 
in the most dilapidated condition, and the inhabitants of all the region round about 
utterly dispirited. But he soon revived their courage, improved their discipline, and 
led them forth to a series of brilliant conquests, which immediately changed the state 
of things, and brought joy and gladness to the heart of the nation. His first 
feat was the storming and conquest of fort Erie, in the spring of 1814. His next 
gallant act was the fighting of the bloody but glorious battle of Chippewa, in which 
he was supported by the gallantry of the brave generals Scott and Ripley. On the 
25th of July, general Brown fought the most obstinately contested and bloody battle 
of Niagara, successfully maintaining all his advantages against the repeated assaults 
of overwhelming reenforcements of the enemy, until he was left in quiet and triumph- 
ant possession of the field. In this last battle he was severely wounded, and laid 
up for nearly two months. 

On the 2d of September he once more resumed the command of the army, which 
the British had succeeded in shutting up in fort Erie, and from which he made a 
series of most brilliant sorties, until they were completely driven from their intrench- 
ments and compelled to retreat from the American soil. This ended the war in that 
quarter, and this was the last of his glorious military service, although he retained his 
commission after the close of the war. In 1821, he was made commander-in-chief 
of the army of the United States, which office he held until the sudden termination 
of his valuable life at the city of Washington, on the 24th of February, 1828, from 
the effects of a disease contracted at fort Erie. At the time of his decease he was 
in the full prime and vigor of manhood, being only fifty-three. His death produced 
a profound sensation, not only in the army, of which he was the idol, but throughout 
the country, who had not forgotten the noble gallantry of his conduct on our northern 
frontier during the bloody campaigns of 1813—14. 




WILLIAM GASTON, LL. D. 



WILLIAM GASTON was born at Newbern, North Carolina, on the 19th of 
September, 1778. He was descended from an ancient family of the Hugue- 
nots in France of that name, who, on the revocation of the edict of Nantz, fled to 
Ireland, from which country Dr. Alexander Gaston, the father of William, came to 
North Carolina, and settled at Newbern prior to the revolution. He became a warm 
friend of the patriots, and lost his life at the hands of a band of renegade tories in 
1781. 

William was but three years of age when this calamitous event occurred, and the 
whole care of his early training fell to the hands of his mother. Nor could it have 
fallen into better hands. She was a woman of a superior cast of mind ; her feehngs 
quick and strong, her sensibilities exquisitely fine, over which gracefully reposed the 
mantle of a devout faith. Just before her husband was slain she had lost her first- 
born son, a lad of high promise, and she now lived for no other object save the train- 
ing of her two children, William and a younger daughter, in the path of knowledge 
and true piety. And well did she discharge her arduous and difficult task. The son 
grew up with those deep, motiierly words of wisdom strongly impressed on his heart 



e08 WILLIAM GASTON, LL. D. 

and reproduced in Ijis own life. Quick and impetuous by nature, apt to learn, of an 
exceedingly affectionate disposition, his mother seized these traits and strove so to 
combine them as to counteract any evil effects from the stronger points in his charac- 
ter; how successfully, those can best judge who had the happiness of his acquaint- 
ance while he lived. 

In 1791, young Gaston was sent to Georgetown college, where, after spending two 
years in severe study, he returned to his home in miserable health, but which a few 
months of relaxation and travel restored once more to its usual condition. After 
studying a while under the care of Rev. Thomas P. Irwing, he entered Princeton col- 
lege, in New Jersey, from which he was graduated with the highest honors of his 
class in the year 1796. And it was, he has often said, the proudest moment of his 
life when he laid the testimonial of this high honor in the lap of his beloved mother. 

On leaving college, Mi\ Gaston entered the office of Francois Xavier Martin, since 
a judge of the supreme court of Louisiana, where he pursued the study of the law 
until 1798, when he was admitted to the bar, being at that time barely twenty years 
of age. In 1800, just as he had passed into his majority, he was elected a member 
of the North Carolina senate, where he soon becafne a leading member and took a 
prominent part in all the actions of that body. In 1808, he was chosen an elector 
of president and vice president; and in 1813, he was sent to congress, w^here he re- 
mained until 1817, when he retired to Newbern, and devoted himself to his profes- 
sional pursuits and domestic enjoyments. He was now living with his third wife, 
whom he had married in 1816. She, too, died in 1819, leaving two infant children. 

Some time after retiring from Congress, Mr. Gaston was appointed judge of the 
supreme court of his native state. In the discharge of his judicial duties he ac- 
quired a just and enviable celebrity, second only to his popularity as a citizen and a 
man. A strong politician, he always strove to preserve the union of the states, and 
took bold and decided grounds against the efforts of disunionists and the spirit of 
secession. His eloquent voice and his irresistible pen were ever on the side of his 
country and of justice. 

But it was as a man that judge Gaston appeared to the greatest advantage. An 
enlarged hospitality marked his home, and a noble generosity his charities. His in- 
tercourse with men was dignified and respectful, but entirely free from hauteur and 
superciliousness; and he won the love of his friends and the respect of all who hud 
the pleasure of his acquaintance. 




V M 



CAPTAIN JAMES LAWRENCE. 



JAMES LAWRENCE, the hero of the Chesapeake, and the "pet of the navy," 
as he is sometimes called, was born at Burlington, New Jersey, on the first day 
of October, 1781. Losing his mother while an infant, her place was supplied by the 
kind and faithful care of two elder sisters, who instilled into his mind those high and 
honorable principles which so strikingly marked his subsequent career. His earliest 
prepossessions were in favor of the sea ; but, deferring to the wishes of his family, he 
decided to study the legal profession. After a few years' diligent study in the high 
school of his native place he entered the law office of his brother John, a lawyer of 
rising reputation in Woodbury. But his passion for the sea made his studies irksome 
and useless ; and his father dying, his brother, with a wise foresight, determined to 
listen to the prompting voice within his bosom, and consented that he should return 
to Burlington and pursue the studies of navigation preparatory to entering the navy. 
Young Lawrence was not yet seventeen when the long-cherished object of his 
heart was gained, and he received a midshipman's warrant. Immediately, in 1798, 
he joined his ship, the Ganges, captain Fingey, and made his first uneventful cruise 
in the West Indian seas. On his return he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, 



QIQ CAPTAIN JAMES LAWRENCE. 

and entered on board the Adams, captain Robinson, 'with whom he sailed until 1801. 
In the squadron destined to act against Tripoli, under commodore Decatur, he acted 
as first officer in the Enterprise, and exhibited great nautical skill and consummate 
bravery during the bombardment of that city, and for which the commander paid him 
a high compliment in his official bulletin. 

On the return of lieutenant Lawrence he was stationed at the New York navy 
yard for a considerable time, when, in 1808, he was appointed first lieutenant to the 
frigate Constitution, where he remained until his promotion to the rank of master 
commandant. He was first ordered to the command of the Vixen ; after which he 
succeeded to the command, successively, of the Wasp, Argus, and Hornet. He was 
bearer of despatches to both the governments of England and France. During this 
period he was married to jVIiss Montaudevert, of the city of New York. 

In 1812, war was declared against England, and captain Lawi-ence was ordered to 
take command of the Hornet sloop-of-war, in the squadron under commodore Bainbridge, 
w hose flag ship was the Constitution. The squadron sailed in October, 1812, for the 
East Indies. When off the coast of Brazil the Hornet got separated from the squad- 
ron, and fell in with the Resolution, an English brig, which she captured. Twenty-five 
thousand dollars were found in the prize ; but, as she proved to be a very dull sailer, 
she was burned, after the removal of the men and money to the Hornet. Soon after 
occurred that terrible action of the Hornet with the British ship Peacock, in which 
the loss of the English was enormous, while the Hornet lost but one man. The 
Peacock went down soon after the action, and carried with it three of the Hornet's 
crew, w4io were endeavoring to rescue their conquered enemies from a watery grave. 
For this achievement congress voted him a gold medal and the highest meed of 
praise. 

In 1813, captain Ijawrence, having been ordered by congi'ess to join the frigate 
Chesapeake, proceeded to Boston, where she was then lying, and sailed from that 
port, on the first day of June, in search of the English frigate Shannon, which had 
been hovering on the coast as if to challenge the American frigate. The same day 
while his seamen were either intoxicated or seasick, he fell in with his enemy and 
fought that disastrous battle which lost to the country so many valuable lives and 
one of our noblest frigates. On the discharge of the first broadside our hero received 
a severe wound, but insisted upon remaining on the quarter deck. A few minutes 
after he received a ball from the maintop of the enemy, and was obliged to "be carried 
below. On passing the gangway, as he was descending to the cockpit, he uttered 
those memorable words which have since become the motto to the navy, and have 
been more effectual to secure his immortality than monuments of brass or pillars of 
granite — "DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP." Arrived at the cockpit, the surgeon 
hastened to the help of his commander; but, motioning him away, he exclaimed, in a 
noble spirit of unselfishness, ^^ No, — serve those who came before me first, — I can 
wait my turnP He lingered until the 5th of the month, when he expired, in the 
thirty-third year of his age. 




HON. ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 



ROBERT RANTOUL, JR., son of Hon. Robert Rantoul, a man of highly re- 
spectable standing and greatly useful in society, was born in Beverly, Massa- 
chusetts, on the 13th of August, 1805. His rudimentary education was acquired 
under his father's immediate supervision in the public schools of his native place ; 
after which, we believe, he pursued his academic studies at Exeter, New Hampshire, 
under charge of that excellent teacher of youth, Rev. Dr. Abbott. In 1822, he en- 
tered Harvard university, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and left that institution an 
accomplished scholar in 1826. 

Having determined to pursue the legal profession, Mr. Rantoul entered the office 
of the honorable and venerable John Pickering, in Salein, Massachusetts. After 
pursuing his studies under the charge of this able lawyer for a time, he completed his 
clerkship in the office of the Hon. Leverett Saltonstall, a fine legal as well as classical 
scholar, and one of the most gentlemanly men in the county of Essex. Under 
direction of these two eminent lawyers he completed his legal studies, and repairing 
to Gloucester, in the same county, opened an office and commenced the practice 
of his profession in 1829. He soon acquired a high reputation as a sharp practitioner 

44 



(512 HON. ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 

and a soni;d and shrewd expounder of local and common law ; and rose, accordingly, 
in the estimation of the public and the amount of business confided to his trust. 

The public career of Mr. Rantoul commenced in 1834, when he was elected to 
represent the town of Gloucester in the general court of Massachusetts, of which he 
was a member several years in succession. He at once acquired distinction in that 
body, and took a leading part in all its important measures. His course was marked 
by the energy with which he devoted himself to procure the passage of a bill to abol- 
ish the death-penalty in the state. The bill which, as chairman of the committee to 
which the subject was referred, he drew up, as well as the elaborate report with which 
it was accompanied, gave evidence of a vast range of thought, and a most thorough 
examination of the whole question, not only as connected with our own country, but 
also with the whole civilized world, and did him great credit as a scholar, statesman, 
and man. 

In 1837, he was appointed a member of the " Massachusetts Board of Education," 
an honor intended by that board to be conferred only on such as were well qualified 
by their literary acquisitions to discharge its highly responsible duties. In 1843, he 
received the appointment of the collectorship for the port of Boston. During the 
various recesses from public life which were allowed him he practised the duties of 
his profession wdth success, and became one of the first lawyers in his county. 

Mr. Rantoul remained in the office of collector but a short time, when, in 1845, he 
was appointed by president Polk district attorney for the district of Massachusetts. 
The duties of this highly responsible office were discharged by him with great fair- 
ness and to general acceptance. 

In 1851, INIr. Webster having been invited to assume the first post in the cabinet 
of Mr. Fillmore, a short vacancy was left in. the senate of the United States. Mr. 
Rantoul, having previously removed to Boston, was selected to fill the unexpired term, 
and accordingly took his seat in that body the same spring. His term of member- 
ship in the senate was so brief that no chance was afforded for the display of his 
statesmanship or his fine forensic powers. 

In the autumn of the same year Mr. Rantoul was elected to the house of repre- 
sentatives of the United States by a coalition of the democrats and freesoilers, who 
were a majority over the whigs in the second district, from which he was elected, and 
took his seat there in December following. Here, also, he was prevented from mak- 
ing any great demonstration of his qualities or acquirements, for he fell a prey to 
disease and closed his eyes on all earthly prospects on the 7th of August, 1852, aged 
only forty-seven years. 




■s; y/^y 



HON. H. W. HILLIARD. 



HENRY WASHINGTON HILLIARD is a native of North Carolina; but 
while a child his father removed to Columbia, South Carolina, where he 
lived until he reached the years of manhood. He early gave indications of a love 
of letters; and such was his proficiency in his studies, that he was graduated with 
distinction at South Carolina College at the age of eighteen. While yet a mere 
boy, he showed a decided taste for politics, and the subject of his graduating oration 
was, " The tendency of the American government to exalt the character of its people." 
It was his high privilege to be associated with the finest minds in the Palmetto State 
in his early life : and it was from such men as Preston, Legare, and others of like 
stamp that he received his political bias. 

On leaving college, Mr. Hilliard entered at once upon the study of the law in the 
town of Columbia. Desirous, however, of obtaining a wider knowledge of the law 
than could be attained in Columbia, he went down to Georgia, and studied two or 
three years in the ofl&ce of Judge Clayton, of Athens. Having completed his clerk- 
ship, he was admitted to the bar. But having received an invitation to fill a chair 
in the university of Alabama, he removed to Montgomery, and entered upon the dis- 
charge of his duties in that position. It was a proud distinction to be called to such 



614 HON. H. W. HILLIARD. 

a dignified position before he was twenty-five years of age. Shortly after removing 
to Montgomery, he opened an office for the practice of the law. He rose rapidly as 
a pleader, and soon established his reputation as a sound and discriminating coun- 
sellor. After two or three years employed in the duties of his professorship, and 
during which time he stored his mind with much valuable information, he resigned 
the honors and emoluments of his chair, and devoted himself entirely to the business 
of his profession. 

On his becoming a citizen of Alabama, Mr. Hilliard at once took an earnest part in 
the political discussions of his state and the country, assuming the whig side of the 
cause. He carried on a long and spirited controversy, over the signature of "Junius 
Brutus," with Hon. Dixon H. Lewis, who used the signature of " A NuUifier," on 
the subject of the sub-treasury. Such was the popularity he acquired in this contest, 
that he was chosen to the legislature of that state in 1838, where he rendered him- 
self somewhat conspicuous by his opposition to the sub-treasury question and nulli- 
fication. 

At the close of the first session, declining a reelection on account of professional 
engagements, Mr. Hilliard once more devoted himself to legal pursuits. But in 

1840, he was induced to enter the political arena once more, in behalf of Henry 
Clay as the candidate for the forthcoming presidential election. Elected a member 
of the whig national convention which assembled at Harrisburg for the nomination 
of president and vice president, he labored with all his energies to procure the nom- 
ination of his favorite candidate. Failing in this, however, on his return to Ala- 
bama, he threw the whole force of his character and position into the canvass in 
favor of the regular candidate. General Harrison, whom he had the pleasure of seeing 
elevated to the high place of honor and trust for which he was a candidate, by a 
most overwhelming majority. 

The following year he was nominated for Congress, but failed of his election. In 

1841, he was offered a foreign embassy, but declined ; and the year following, being 
offered the mission to Belgium, to succeed Hon. Virgil Maxy, he accepted the honor, 
and immediately embariied for Brussels, where he remained only two years, when, 
voluntarily resigning his office, he once more returned home. One of our citizens 
of eminence, who visited Brussels in 1843, says of Mr. Hilliard, that " he was really an 
American minister, and a practical republican." He returned to Alabama in 1844, 
and immediately became a candidate for Congress. After a severe contest he was 
triumphantly elected, and took his seat in that body, as the representative from the 
Montgomery district, at the commencement of its twenty-ninth session. His career in 
Congress has been a brilliant one, and done equal honor to himself and the district 
he has represented. 

Mr. Hilliard has scarcely reached the full strength of manhood, and we may hope 
that he will yet render important service to his country, and reflect much glory on 
those who may intrust him with office and power. 




CASPAR WISTAR, M. D. 



C^ ASPAR WISTAR was born in Philadelphia on the 13th of September, 1761. 
J Born and educated in the principles of Quakerism, he was not permitted to en- 
gage in the profession of arms, for which he seems to have had a predilection, despite 
his early education in the academy built and patronized by the members of that 
staid sect in his native city. When he was sixteen years of age, the battle of Ger- 
mantown occurred, and his humanity led him to afford relief to the wounded and 
suffering patriots. Here he was struck with the important and exalted profession of 
medicine, and determined to consecrate his life to its study and practice. Accord- 
ingly, with the full approbation of his friends, he entered the office of Dr. John Red- 
man, of Philadelphia, one of the most distingiTished physicians of his time. With 
Dr. Redman he continued three years, the last of which was devoted to practice in 
the place of Dr. John Jones, who had left New York on the occasion of its being 
in possession of the British. 

Having taken the degree of bachelor of medicine at the college in Philadelphia, in 
1782, Dr. Wistar went to England and Scotland to finish his education. He re- 
mained abroad five years, three of which were devoted to the study of his profession 



gl(3 CASPAR WIST AR, M. D. 

at the university at Edinburgh, from which institution he was graduated, with the 
degree of doctor of medicine, in 1786. Here he became acquainted with some of 
the ablest surgeons and physicians both in London and Edinburgh, whose respect 
and friendship he retained during life. Such was his great power of illustration and 
debate, and such the popularity he won in the daily discussions of the " Royal Med- 
ical Society," that he was called to preside over the deliberations of this eminent 
institution for the space of two years. 

Early in the year 1787, Dr. Wistar returned to America and resumed the practice 
of his profession in the city of his nativity. In 1792, he became associated with 
Dr. Shippen, who, for more than thirty years, had been an ornament to the profes- 
sion and the city. Three years prior to this union, Dr. Wistar had been made pro- 
fessor of chemistry in the college of Philadelphia, and Dr. Shippen was professor of 
anatomy in the same institution, as well as filling the same chair in the rival univer- 
sity of the state of Pennsylvania. It had been an object of both these eminent men 
to bring about a union of these rival schools; and, in 1793, they had the happiness 
of beholding the fulfilment of their desires under the name of the university of 
Pennsylvania. 

In the course of a few years, Dr. Wistar became sole occupant of the anatomical 
chair. Dr. Shippen having relinquished its duties ; and here, properly speaking, com- 
mences the influence he ever afterwards exerted in the elevation of the character of 
the institution of which he was so brilliant a member and so great a benefactor. He 
became exceedingly popular with not only the students, but the faculty also, both in 
and out of the college. That they might be brought more into unprofessional con- 
tact, and thus learn more of each other as men and scholars, he instituted a 
social gathering at his own rooms, to which all the members of the college, as well 
as gentlemen of the learned professions and artists in the city, were invited. And, 
that it might not degenerate into a mere club, he established stringent, sumptuary rules. 
These " Wista)' parties " have ever since been sustained, not only in that city, but in 
New York, Baltimore, and one or two other large cities, and are the most recherche 
associations that can be imagined. 

Dr. Wistar labored indefatigably to raise the character of the department of the 
college over which he presided. He not only went through his regular routine of 
duties, but he at once set about procuring an anatomical museum and library. He 
obtained large accessions to his cabinet from his friends in Europe, and procured at 
his own expense many valuable models in wood, which were executed by his friend 
and coadjutor. Dr. Rush. He lived just long enough to witness the accomplishment 
of all his wishes respecting the school, in the perfection of his cabinet, and the im- 
provement of the buildings, lecture room, etc. ; when, in January, 1818, he was seized 
with the malady which put an end to his mortal career, in the fifty-eighth year of 
his age. 




MISS CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. 



CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN, the celebrated American actress, was born in Bos- 
ton, Massachusetts. She was the eldest of five children, left dependent on their 
mother by the decease of then- father when she was only a child. This task the 
mother performed with an unshrinking heart and a firm trust in " the widow's God." 
She gave her children an excellent education in all the solid branches of learning, 
and instructed them also in those accomplishments which were to fit them to appear 
in society on a footing with children of a higher descent. Charlotte inherited from 
her mother an excellent voice and taste for music. At first she sang at the chapel 
where her mother's family worshipped, and where her superior voice attracted much 
attention. 

Being invited by some wealthy relations to make them a visit in the city of New 
York, they were so much pleased with the Yankee girl as to offer to adopt her and 
provide for her. But her mother could not find it in her heart to give her up, and she 
returned to Boston again. Soon after this Mrs. Wood, hearing her sing, was cap- 
tivated with the rich tones of her fine contralto voice, and invited her to sing in con- 
cert. She was so much pleased with her singing that she advised the novitiate to go 
upon the stage, a proposition which her family stoutly resisted from religious scruples. 



QIQ MISS CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. 

The year following, Miss Cushrnan accompanied Maeder to New Orleans, as 
prima donna in a series of concerts he was about to give there, but suddenly lost her 
voice altogether. This was a terrible blow, and to one of less moral courage would 
have proved utterly overwhelming. But she had also inherited a portion of her 
mother's invincible courage, and she did not despair. Alone in a strange city, with- 
out friends to help or a dollar in her purse, she applied to Barton, the tragedian, 
with whom she was partially acquainted, and who, at that time, was performing an 
engagement in one of the theatres. " Fly to the stage," was his advice ; " you have 
parts that will place you in the foremost rank." After much and painful deliberation 
she determined to make a trial of it. Without the knowledge of any of her ac- 
quaintances she read with Barton, who was soon so satisfied with her power that he 
advised her to announce herself as Lady Macbeth, which she did, after due deliber- 
ation, much to the surprise of all. After encountering innumerable difficulties in the 
matter of wardrobe, etc., she made her first appearance in this trying position. 
Every one except Barton predicted a failure, and many came to witness " the 
failure." But she made a most successful debut, and bore herself triumphantly 
throughout. 

After fulfilling an engagement at New Orleans, Miss Cushman went to New York 
and engaged herself for three years at a second-rate theatre, (the best she found it in 
lier power to do ;) but after a week's performance she was taken ill of a fever, and 
before she had. so far recovered as to take her place once more on its boards the 
theatre was burned to the ground, and her entire wardrobe perished in the flames. 
In the expectation of being able to do something for the support of her family, she 
had removed them to New York, and she now found herself in the most destitute 
condition, and her health broken and gone. About this time, also, a married sister, 
whose worthless husband had deserted her, came to live with the family, and thus 
increased her responsibility and anxiety. 

Sorrowing, yet not despairing. Miss Cushman assumed the task of fitting her sis- 
ter (who had assumed her maiden name, Sarah Cushman) for the stage, and then of 
bringing her out, which she successfully did at Philadelphia. She afterwards played 
on the New York stage with great success. From New York she went to London 
in 1845, and acted with immense success, raising her fame as the best tragic actress 
on the English stage. Having thus established her reputation, she called her mother 
and sisters to her the following year. Here she remained, winning golden opinions 
throughout the kingdom, and realizing a handsome independence for life, until 1849, 
when she once more returned to her native country and established herself in New 
York city. Here she appeared in afi her favorite characters with great applause, and 
has since acted with like success in all the principal cities of the Union. She has 
many admirers and sincere friends every where she has gone, and is an example of 
what a strong purpose and continued perseverance can accomplish under the most 
difficult and trying circumstances. 




HORATIO GIIEENOUGH. 



OUR country is still in its infancy — not yet are there any ancient families lielJ 
up from generation to generation by the entail of exhaustless wealth, and there 
are fcAv men of taste and genius whose large patrimony enables thetn to devote 
themselves to the pursuit of artistic knowledge. The American people are utilita- 
rian, as is the age they live in. Their genius is turned towards the means of ac- 
cumulating wealth and securing the greatness of their native country, and in this they 
are not a whit behind any nation on earth. As yet, comparatively small attention 
has been given to literature and the arts. Still we have reason to be proud of our 
own artists, some of whom rank high even in Europe. The names of West, and 
Stuart, and Healy, of Powers and Grcenough, with a respectable company of others, 
give evidence that there is a soul of art beneath the ribs of death which environ it ; 
and that the time may not be hopelessly remote when this mighty people, now so 
secular and sordid, will not only rise to an equality with the old-world kingdoms, 
but become the leaders in whatsoever things are beautiful and refined. 

Horatio Greenougii was born in Boston, September, 1805. His early studies 
were pursued in those unequalled seminaries for rudimental education, the " Boston 
common schools," and his classical education was completed wiiliin the classic 

45 



620 HORATIO GREENOUGH 

shades of "Old Harvard," from which institution he was graduated in 1825. From 
his earliest boyhood he had given proof of the genius which pointed his future way, 
and the little images whittled out of a pine stick or a piece of gypsum, with a 
broken penknife,' were only prophets of his future success and glory. 

Determined to be a sculptor, immediately he left college he proceeded to Italy, to 
study his art at the fountain head. Arrived at Rome, he formed the acquaintance — 
which ultimately ripened into intimacy — of those great masters of art, Thorwald- 
sen, Tenerani, and Koppels, under whose patronage and instruction he made rapid 
proficiency. His studies were interrupted, after two years, with a dangerous fever, 
to recover from the effects of which he was obliged to return to America. Here he 
remained a year ; and, recovering his health, he once more sailed for Rome. While 
in his native country he executed the portraits of Josiah Quincy and J. Q. Adams, 
the former president of Harvard College, the latter president of the United States. 

In 1828, Mr. Greenough reached Italy, and immediately recommenced the studies 
sickness had so unceremoniously interrupted. Here he rapidly acquired fame, each 
succeeding effort placing his name higher amongst those masters whose wonderful 
creations have delighted and instructed the world. Besides almost innumerable 
busts of our great men, and full-length likenesses of children, he has completed sever- 
al groups of figures, both colossal and of the size of life. His "Gronpof Cherubs," 
and the bust of Cooper, were completed in 1828-'29. The " Medora" in 1830-'31. 
In 1833, he designed the colossal statue of Washington, by order of the government, 
and erected it in 1840 — it stands a monument of his genius and industry, an en- 
during tribute to his patriotism. His latest completed work of any importance, was 
finished during the last year, (1852.) It is called " The Rescue," and is designed 
to illustrate the moral ascendency of the Anglo-Saxon over the aboriginal races. 

Mr. Greenough has been for some time engaged on a colossal " Equestrian Statue 
of Washington," ordered by the city of New York, and intended to grace Union 
Square, in that city. This, when finished and erected to its pedestal, will, doubtless, 
prove his clief cVceiwre, and be an ornament to the commercial metropolis of his 
native land. 

Postscript. — " Man appoints, but God disappoints." This maxim is strikingly 
illustrated in the sudden departure of this eminent artist, who, in the midst of all 
his labors and unfinished plans, was called from this sphere of action to another and 
a higher, on the Cth of December, 1853. He died at Somerville, Mass., aged forty- 
nine years. 




PETALESHAROO. 



THIS remarkable brave was a Pawnee, and was born within the bounds of that 
tribe about 1795-6. [A brave is one remove below a chief, and a warrior one 
below a brave.] He was the son of Letelesha, the principal chief of the Pawnees, 
and commonly known as the knife chief, and was noted for the noble symmetry of 
his person, his prowess in the chase, and his vmdaunted and romantic courage. In 
major Long's expedition to the Rocky mountains, in 1819-20, he became acquainted 
with Petalesharoo, and it was through his influence that this young brave was 
induced to visit Washington, in 1821, with a large delegation of his tribe. 

Dr. Morse, in his " Indian Reports," gives the following anecdote of this gallant 
savage, which excites our highest admiration, and shows that the most refined and 
christian sentiments are sometimes concealed beneath a red skin : — 

" At the age of twenty-one, he was so distinguished by his abilities and prowess 
that he was called the ' bravest of the braves.^ But few years previous to 1821, it 
was a custom, not only with his nation but those adjacent, to torture and burn cap- 
tives as sacrifices to the Great Star. In an expedition performed by some of his 
countrymen against the Iteans a female was taken, who, on their return, was doomed 



522 PETALESHAROO. 

to suffer according to their usages. She was fastened to the stake, and a vast crowd 
assembled upon the adjoining plain to witness the scene. This brave, unobserved, 
had stationed two fleet horses at a small distance, and was seated among the crowd 
as a silent spectator. All were anxiously waiting to enjoy the spectacle of the first 
contact of the flames with their victim ; when, to their astonishment, a brave was 
seen rending asunder the cords which bound her, and, with the swiftness of thought, 
bearing her in his arms beyond the amazed multitude ; where placing her upon one 
horse, and mounting himself upon the other, he bore her off" safe to her friends and 
country. This act would have endangered the life of an ordinary chief; but such 
was his sway in the tribe that no one presumed to censure the daring act." 

In 1821, Petalesharoo was in Washington city, where he excited a gi'eat deal of 
attention on account of his handsome form, intelligent and amiable face, and manly 
demeanor. Here, too, the fame of his mad exploit, in the rescue of the Itean woman, 
had preceded him, and the young ladies of Miss White's seminary in that place re- 
solved to give him a demonstration of the high esteem in which they held him on 
account of his humane conduct. They therefore presented him an elegant silver med- 
al, appropriately inscribed, accompanied by the following short but affectionate ad- 
di'ess : " Brother, accept this token of our esteem ; always wear it for our sakes ; and 
when again you have the power to save a poor woman from death and torture, think 
of this and of us, and fly to her relief and her rescue." 

To this Petalesharoo made the following gallant and characteristic reply. Taking 
the medal, which had just been suspended on his neck by the hands of one of the 
fair donors, and holding it up before the company so that all might see it, he thus 
spoke : " This will give me more ease than I ever had, and I will listen more than I 
ever did to white men. I am glad that my brothers and sisters have heard of the 
good act I have done. My brothers and sisters think that I did it in ignorance ; but 
I now know what I have done. I did it in ignorance, and did not know that I did 
good ; but, by giving me this medal, I know it." 

We will give one more of Dr. Morse's anecdotes of this brave Petalesharoo, in 
which also Letelesha, the knife chief, his father, figured. It is as follows : — 

" Some time after the attempt to sacrifice the Itean woman, one of the warriors of 
Letelesha brought to the nation a Spanish boy whom he had taken. The warrior 
was resolved to sacrifice him to Venus, and the time was appointed. Letelesha had 
a long time endeavored to do away the custom, and now consulted Petalesharoo upon 
the course to be pursued. The young brave said, ' I will rescue the boy, as a warrior 
should, by force.' His father was unwilling that he should expose his life a second 
time, and used great exertions to raise a sufficient quantity of merchandise for the 
purchase of the captive. All that were able contributed ; and a pile was made of it 
at the lodge of the knife chief, who then summoned the warrior before him. When 
he had arrived, the chief commanded him to take the merchandise and deliver the 
boy to him. The warrior refused. Letelesha then waved his war club in the air, 
bade the warrior obey, or prepare for instant death. ' Strike,'' said Petalesharoo ; ' 1 
will meet the vengeance of his friends!' But the prudent and excellent Letelesha 
resolved to use one more endeavor before commiting such an act. He therefore in- 
creased the amount of property, which had the desired eft'ect. The boy was surren- 
dered, and the valuable collection of goods sacrificed in his stead." 




JOHN THOENTON KIRKLAND, D. D., LL. D. 



JOHN THORNTON KIRKLAND, late president of Harvard University, whose 
father, Rev. Samuel Kirkland, was, for nearly a half century, a missionary 
among the Oneida Indians, and whose mother traced her descent direct from thie re- 
doubtable Captain Miles Standish, was the twin-brother of George Whitefield Kirk- 
land, and was born at Little Falls, on the Mohawk River, New York, on the 17th 
of August, 1770. In his Indian home he must have suffered in his education, had 
it not been for the tender care of a strong-minded mother, who early sought to plant 
in his mind the germs of knowledge, while she nourished in his heart those seeds of 
a rational and ardent piety which grew up into such an abundant harvest in his 
riper life. 

In 1784, at the age of thirteen, he became a pupil of Phillips Academy, in Exeter 
New Hampshire, and so thorough had been the training of his mother, and so suc- 
cessfully were his studies pursued while in Exeter, that he entered as freshman at 
Harvard College, two years afterward, at the age of fifteen. While in college he 
lost his excellent mother, "a misfortune," he writes in his journal, "which this 
world can never repair." He seems to have had a strong affection for her, and to 
have mourned her loss with a sincere sorrow. 



624 JOHN THORNTON K I R K L A N D, D . D . , L L . D . 

The year after leaving college he spent at Exeter, as assistant in the academy. 
Having resolved to enter the ministry, he devoted his attention to the study of the- 
ology, and in August, 1793, he was unanimously invited to take charge of the church 
and society in Summer Street, Boston, now in pastoral charge of Rev. Alexander 
Young, D, D., and was ordained in February, 1794. Here he labored for sixteen 
years, admired, respected, and beloved. As a preacher he had but few equals, " He 
was," says Dr. Young, in a sermon delivered at his decease, " a mighty moralist, 
and as an ethical preacher had no equal. He possessed a thorough, intimate, mar- 
vellous knowledge of man. 

' He was a keen observer, and he looked 
Quite through the ways of men.' 

He sounded the lowest depths of the soul, and searched its most obscure recesses. 
He detected men's hidden motives and secret principles of action, and dragged them 
forth to the light. He laid bare the human heart, and dissected its minutest fibres. 
He tracked the sinner through all his mazes, and stripped him of all his subterfuges 
and disguises. He left him no apology for doing wrong, no excuse for being a bad 
man." While pastor of this church, he received the honorary degree of doctor of 
divinity, in 1802. 

In 1810, the presidential chair of Harvard became vacant by the death of Dr. 
Webber. Instinctively all eyes and thoughts centred on Dr. Kirkland as his suc- 
cessor, and he was elected president of that university immediately after, on the 14th 
of November. For eighteen years he held this important post, and until the last 
four years, when sickness robbed him of his strength, his brilliant genius, his high 
scholarship, his unequalled benevolence, and his many social virtues made him al- 
most an object of reverence to every one connected with the college. Well says his 
biographer, " This was the Augustan age of the college. Never before was it 
so prosperous and so popular. No man ever did so much for Harvard University as 
President Kirkland." 

In 1817, he suffered a severe attack of the paralysis, which reduced him from a 
man of vigorous health to a valetudinarian ; and in 1828, he resigned the office of 
president. 

In 1817, he had married Miss Elizabeth Cabot, daughter of Hon. George Cabot, 
his former parishioner and friend. Soon after his resignation he travelled extensively 
in our southern and western states ; and in the spring of the following year, finding 
his health still failing, he embarked for Europe, and, after an absence of three years 
and a half, he returned to Boston, where he passed between seven and eight years 
more, enjoying most of the time comfortable health ; but he never recovered his 
physical energies, or the brilliancy of mind that belonged to his days of health, and 
on the morning of the Sabbath, April 26, 1841, he tranquilly " slept his last sleep," 
being in the seventieth year of his age. 




HON. WILLIAM SULLIVAN, LL. D 



WILLIAM SULLIVAN was born at Saco, in the District of Maine, Novem- 
ber 12, 1774. He was of Irish descent, and the name of Sullivan ranks 
among the honorable names of Massachusetts. His early education was superin- 
tended by the Rev. Dr. Payson, of Chelsea, near Boston, by whom he was prepared 
for an honorable matriculation in Harvard University, Cambridge, whence he was 
graduated with the highest honors of his class, in 1792, at the age of eighteen. 
Choosing the profession of the law, he underwent the necessary clerkship in the 
office of his father, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar, at Boston, in 1795. 

Before entering into the duties of the profession he had chosen, he spent some 
months in visiting several of the principal cities of the United States, when he re- 
turned to Boston and opened an office. He married shortly after this, and devoted 
himself with great assiduity to the business of his office, and the acquisition of the 
knowledge necessary to enable him to become eminent in his profession. He used 
to rise at four in the morning, and devote the time previous to the hour for the com- 
mencement of business to reading the languages, and to the study of law and gen- 
eral literature. 

This severe application was not without its reward. Mr. Sullivan soon rose to a 



626 HON. WILLIAM SULLIVAN, LL. D. 

highly-respectable standing at the bar, and Wealth poured her treasures into his cof- 
fers. Accustomed to mingle in the best society, he kept up, in his own house, the 
manners of a gentleman of the old school, and his open board was the scene of much 
elegant entertainment, where he presided with great affability and dignity. Here 
were collected all the great spirits of the times, and hei-e were often discussed the 
weighty topics of that exciting age. His father was a democrat — himself a fed- 
eralist; and he entered with great zeal into all the measures of the federal party. 

In 1803, Mr. Sullivan pronounced the oration in Boston commemorative of our 
national independence, and such was the impression made upon the citizens of that 
town that he was chosen to represent them in the next General Court, in 1804. From 
this time until 1830, a period of twenty-six years, he occupied a seat in the legislative 
halls of Massachusetts, sometimes as representative, sometimes as senator, and 
sometimes as a member of the Executive Council. During this period he repeatedly 
declined the urgent solicitations of his friends to stand for a seat in Congre?s. He 
was strongly attached to his home, and would not consent to be drawn from it by 
the glare and glitter of office. It was his ambition also to be a good lawyer, and he 
would not allow his habits of study and application to be broken in upf n by the- 
calls of an office which would interfere with his regular course of practice. 

As a lawyer, Mr. Sullivan was sound and judicious rather than brilliant, and his 
argmnents were clear and powerful, having little meretricious adorning. He was a 
man, moreover, of exact and exemplary morality; his mann'^.rs were the most gen- 
tlemanly and courteous, and he gained the respect of all who knew him. As he 
advanced in life he relinquished the more arduous duties of his profession, but al- 
ways took a lively interest in the history and acts of the bar to which he had be- 
longed, and of which he had been an ornament. For many years he was president 
of the Suffolk bar, as well as of the " Social Law Library Association." 

During the latter years of his life, Mr. Sullivan devoted his attention to the pur- 
suit of literature, and published many valuable books. Among others, " Sea Life," 
an interesting book suggested by accidenta'ly hearing " Father Taylor," the sea- 
man's minister, and v^'hich was the first of a series of movements in the city for pro- 
viding these excellent seamen's chapels and " Homes for Seamen," which are an honor 
to the city. In 1831, he published the " Political Class Book," a work subsequently 
introduced into all the higher schools of New England. In 1833, his " Moral Class 
Book " appeared, and in the same year his " Historical Class Book," also intended 
for schools. In 1834, he published a thick octavo volume, entitled " Public Men 
of the Revolution," and in 1837, " Historical Causes and Effects, from the Fall 
of the Roman Empire, A. D. 476, V t'^e Reformation, 1517." He died September 3, 
1839, aged sixty-four years. 

Mr. Sullivan was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and 
an honorary member of nearly every literary and scientific society in New England. 
His alma mater also conferred on him the degree of doctor of laws. 




HON. GEORGE N. BRIGGS, 



THE late dignified governor of Massachusetts, rose from a very humble position 
in life by dint of his own unaided efforts, and acquired his education and pro- 
fession without any pecuniary assistance from others. His father was a very re- 
spectable blacksmith, diligent at his business and faithful in all the relations of life, 
and won the confidence and respect of all his neighbors. George was born in 
Adams, Massachusetts, in 1796. His early years were passed at home, and divided 
between his father's smithy and the sports of his native village, with a few weeks 
each summer and winter devoted to school. As he grew up his fondness for books 
began to manifest itself, and his desire for an education determined him to acquire 
one. By his active industry he acquired the means of obtaining a sufficient ac- 
quaintance with Latin, Greek, and the higher branches of English, to enable him 
to enter upon the study of his profession upon a standing of equality with other 
young men who had been far more highly favored. 

Mr. Briggs studied law in the office of L. Washburn, Esq., in the neighboring 
town of Lanesboro', and immediately opened an office in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 
where he has ever since resided. Notwithstanding the many disadvantages under 
which he commenced his legal course, he soon found himself on a respectable 

46 



623 HON. GEORGE N. BRIGGS. 

footing with his brethren, and rose to a high degree of popularity as a counsellor 
and advocate in the county wherein he practised. 

Such was the confidence of his fellow-citizens in his thorough ability to take 
charge of their political interests, that, in 1830, he was elected by the congressional 
district in which he resided to a seat in the United States House of Representatives, 
and he accordingly went to Washington and assumed his duties in the winter of the 
same year. This was the commencement of his political career, and never having 
been a member of any deliberative body before, he had to acquire a knowledge of 
all the routine of business ; yet such was his fidelity to the interests of his constit- 
uents, that they reelected him with great unanimity. In a short time he had become 
au fait with all the externals of legislation, and had studied the principles of par- 
liamentary law so thoroughly as to acquire a high position in that body as a states- 
man and politician, and to command the respect and esteem of men of all parties 
and localities. 

In 1838, Mr. Briggs declined being considered a candidate any longer ; but such 
was the satisfaction his congressional course had given his constituency, that they 
would not listen to his request, and he was again elected with even greater unanim- 
ity than before, and served in the same station six more years, when he retired to 
his own home among the Berkshire hills, and resumed the practice of the law. 

In 1844, the whig party in his native state, of which he had ever been a faithful 
and consistent member, put him in noinination for the office of governor. He was 
elected with considerable unanimity, and was sworn into office the January follow- 
ing. Until 1850, for the space of five years, he was annually reelected to the same 
office, when he was relieved from further service in that capacity by the election of 
the democratic candidate, Hon. George S. Boutwell. 

The retirement of Governor Briggs from office was as graceful as his whole gu- 
bernatorial career had been dignified, and he carried with him to his hilly home the 
respect of all the citizens of the Bay State. 

In 1852, a state convention was called for the purpose of revising the constitution, 
of which Governor Briggs was chosen a member. Throughout the whole session 
he was an active member, and did much to facilitate the measures of that body. 

Governor Briggs is an active member of nearly all the philanthropic associations 
of the day, and his character for virtue and piety is without reproach among his 
acquaintance. 



''ii 




HON. MAHLON DICKINSON. 



MAHLON DICKINSON was born in Morris county, New Jersey, in 1771. 
After having been graduated at Princeton College, New Jersey, he studied 
law, and was admitted to the bar in 1793. He opened an office in his native county, 
and rapidly rose in his profession. Losing his health, he enlisted as a private in 
Captain Kinney's troop of horse, and served as a volunteer in the expedition sent to 
quell the rebellion in western Pennsylvania. He returned from this service entirely 
restored, and feeling that Morris county was too small a sphere of action, he re- 
moved to Philadelphia in 1796, and opened an office in that city. But his business, 
at first, being limited, he occupied his leisure hours in reviewing his whole course 
of legal and classical studies. He revised the Latin and Greek authors whom he 
had read in college, and extended his classical reading far beyond the limited fields 
of a collegiate course. He furbished up his philosophy and mathematics, which 
had become somewhat rusty through long desuetude. He also contributed several 
papers on political questions to the newspapers and journals of that time, particu- 
larly the Aurora, then the leading organ of the democratic party in the state. This 
led him to an acquaintance with the principal politicians of his party in Philadel- 
phia, as also with Mr. Jefferson, then Vice President of the United States. 



630 HON. MAHLON DICKINSON. 

Ill 1801, Mr. Dickinson was chosen a member of the Common Council, and about 
the same time he was appointed solicitor for the corporation. In 1802, he was ap- 
pointed a commissioner of bankruptcy by Mr. Jefferson, and in 1804, he was offered 
the attorney generalship of Louisiana, then just ceded to the United States. But 
he was now rapidly rising in business and influence, and found his position in Phila- 
delphia too satisfactory to incline him to accept the offer. In 1805, he was appointed 
adjutant general of Pennsylvania, but resigned the office in 1808, on being chosen 
recorder of Philadelphia. 

In 1810, by the death of his father and a younger brother, he was called to New 
Jersey to superintend the affairs devolving on him through their demise. He accord- 
ingly repaired to his former home in Morris county, where he ever afterward resided, 
and devoted his time to the superintendence of the extensive iron mines and other 
valuable property which fell into his possession. He entirely relinquished the busi- 
ness of his office, and devoted his whole time to manufactures and the discharge 
of his political duties. 

In 1811, he was sent to the legislature, and was reelected in 1812. Here his rare 
powers of statesmanship began to manifest themselves, and he devoted himself to 
the work of bringing the State of New Jersey to the aid of the government in sup- 
port of the war of 1812. He was a warm and consistent democrat, and gave his 
full support to the administration of Mr. Madison, during the eight years of peril 
and glory in which he filled the executive department of the nation. 

In 1813, Mr. Dickinson was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of New 
Jersey. He held that office but one year, having been, in 1814, elected to the office 
of governor. He was reelected in the following year, and held the office until 1817, 
when he was chosen to represent his native state in the upper house of Congress. 
This has been the principal theatre of his political action ; a field for which his high 
attainments in literature, his thorough acquaintance with the principles of govern- 
ment, his rare coolness and sound judgment eminently qualified him. Here for 
sixteen successive years he discharged the duties of senator with great acceptance to 
his party, as well as in devotion to the great interests of agriculture, education, com- 
merce, and manufactures. 

In 1833, Mr. Dickinson retired from Congress, and the year following was nomi- 
nated as minister to Russia. His nomination was confirmed by the Senate ; but 
just as he was on the point of sailing, the president appointed him to a seat in his 
cabinet, which he preferring, accepted, and entered at once on the discharge of his 
duties as secretary of the navy. At the close of his term of office he once more 
retired to his estates, and devoted himself to the superintendence of his extensive 
business. 




WILLIAM WIRT. 



WILLIAM WIRT was born at Bladensburg, Maryland, on the 8th of Novem- 
ber, 1772. He was the youngest of six children, and lost his parents before 
he was eight years old. Thus bereft of parental care at an early age, and with no 
patrimony to aid in his education, his uncle, Jasper Wirt, caring affectionately for 
the lad, took him under his direction, and placed him at a flourishing school in Mont- 
gomery county, kept by Rev. James Hunt. Here he continued four years, and being 
a boy of brilliant parts, he made rapid proficiency in the rudiments of the Latin, 
Greek, and his mother tongues. Here he also acquired a taste for general literature, 
which afterwards proved of such great advantage, and gave such a charm to every 
thing which emanated from his fertile pen. Too poor to pursue a classical course 
of studies, at fifteen he became a private tutor in the family of the father of the late 
Governor Edwards, of Illinois. He afterwards began the study of law with Mr. 
William P. Hunt, son of his old preceptor, and completed his course with Mr. 
Thomas Swann, formerly United States attorney for the District of Columbia. In 
1792, he commenced practice at Culpepper Court House, in Virginia. 

At this time he possessed a vigorous constitution, and was blessed with a fine 
person, and an address winning in the extreme. His conversational powers were of 



532 WILLIAM WIRT. 

the highest order, and he seldom failed to fascinate those who came within the 
sphere of his acquaintance. His first case in court was successrfully carried against 
considerable ditficulty, and immediately established his rejDutation as a lawyer — 
a reputation which only grew fairer and broader as long as he lived. 

In 1795, Mr. Wirt married the eldest daughter of Dr. George Gilmer, a distin- 
guished physician, and took up his residence at Pen Park, the seat of his father-in- 
law, near Charlottesville. Dr. Gilmer was a wit and a scholar, and his house was the 
resort of all the celebrated men of the times. Here he made the acquaintance of 
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and many other men of learning and eminence. Being 
of a convivial disposition, and capable of rendering himself at all times attractive 
to the gay society in which he mingled, he acquired habits of great dissipation, and 
was fast falling into the slough of insignificance and infamy, w^hen he was arrested 
in his headlong course by the subduing eloquence of a blind preacher, by the name 
of Waddell, whose reputation for native oratory had drawn Wirt to his humble 
altar, and whose manner and appearance he has so graphically described in his 
" British Spy." From this time he became thoroughly reformed, and his rise to 
honor and profit was steady and rapid. About this time he lost his young wife, and 
devoted himself with more assiduity than before to the studies and duties of his 
profession. 

In 1799, he was elected clerk of the House of Delegates, In 1802, he was ap- 
pointed chancellor of the eastern district of Virginia, and took up his residence at 
Williamsburg. The same year he married the daughter of Colonel Gamble, of 
Richmond. He soon after resigned his chancellorship, and at the close of the year 
1803 removed to Norfolk, and entered upon the practice of his profession. 

This was the period at which he wrote those spirited letters, under the signature 
of " The British Spy," and which were published originally in the " Richmond 
Argus." These letters, which his countrymen have read with such unfeigned delight, 
were afterward published in a volume, and run through a dozen editions. 

In 1806, he took up his residence at Richmond, and, in the following year, ht* 
greatly distinguished himself in the trial of Colonel Burr. In 1812, he wrote the 
greater part of a series of essays, which were originally published in the Richmond 
Enquirer, under the title of " The Old Bachelor," and which have since, in a col- 
lected form, passed through several editions. The " Life of Patrick Henry," his 
largest literary production, was first published in 1817. As a writer he was ranked 
among the first of his times, and the productions of his pen were characterized by 
great beauty of diction, and although somewhat diffuse, they sparkled with the most 
brilliant effusions of wit, at times melting into inexpressible pathos and tenderness. 

In 1816, he was appointed by Mr. Madison United States attorney for the dis- 
trict of Virginia ; and in 1817, by Mr. Mom-oe, attorney general of the United 
States, which post he filled with distinguished success through the entire adminis- 
trations of Monroe and the younger Adams. 

In 1830, he retired to spend the remainder of his days in the beautiful city of 
Baltimore. Here he lived the object of affection, and almost veneration, in all the 
wide circle of his acquaintance, until his death, which occurred at the capital, on the 
]8th of February, 1835, being sixty-one years of age. 




EDWARD LIVINGSTON. 



rr^HTS accomplished man was born in Clermont, Columbia county, New York, in 
JL 1764. After such preparatory studies as the state of the country permitted, he 
entered Princeton College, as junior, and graduated in 1781. The times were most 
unpropitious to the acquisition of a thorough classical education. The incursions 
of the enemy frequently broke up the order of the college, and professors, tutors, and 
students were alike driven from the classic shades of Princeton, which were con- 
verted to a military camp, and occupied by the hostile bands of an invading foe. 

When Mr. Livingston graduated, in 1781, his class had been reduced to four. 
Three of these young men, by a singular coincidence, thirteen years after, met on 
the floor of the lower house in the national Congress. Governor Giles, of Virginia, 
was one of them, and the other the Hon. Mr. Venables, who perished at the burning 
of the Richmond Theatre. 

After studying the profession of the law in the office of the late Chancellor Lan- 
sing, in Albany, he was admitted to the bar in 1785, and opened an office in New 
York shortly after, where he attained a degree of eminence of which he might well 
be proud. In 1794, he was elected to represent the city of New York, and the coun- 
ties of Queen and Richmond, in the fourth Congress — ten members only being 
allowed to the whole state. 



(334 EDWARD LIVINGSTON. 

In 1801, declining a reelection, he returned to his adopted city, and resolved to 
devote himself to the practice of his profession. " It is not in man that walketh to 
direct his steps," however, and in a short time he was called to the honorable and 
highly responsible post of United States attorney for the State of New York. He 
carried with him into the discharge of the duties of his new office the same prompt 
and active zeal which had marked his congressional career. This zeal was kindly 
tempered with a benevolence which did large credit to his heart, always leaning to 
the side of mercy, whenever it was at all compatible with the stern rectitude of law 
and the safety of the public. 

In 1803, Mr. Livingston was elected mayor of the city. The summer and au- 
tumn of that year was noted for the devastating visit of the pestilence to the city, 
bv which many eminent citizens were suddenly hurried to another scene of exist- 
ence. Mr. Livingston fell a victim to the pestilence, and for several days his life 
hung only by a trembling thread. Slowly he returned to health, only to discover, 
that, by carelessness or unfaithfulness of those intrusted with the duties of his office 
during his sickness, his private affairs had become very much embarrassed, and his 
responsibilities to government very large — in a word, he had become a defaulter 
greatly b-'^ond his means. Promptly resigning all his offices, he immediately re- 
paired t cjouisiana, where, in a few years, he accumulated a fortune, and was able 
to settle vith all his creditors to the uttermost farthing. 

Arriving in New Orleans, in 1804, he pursued his legal profession until the inva- 
sion of that city by the British forces, when he became an aid to General Jackson, 
and shared with him the glory of that brief but brilliant campaign, which put an 
end to the war of 1812. After the war, Mr. Livingston was employed in revising 
the legal code of his adopted state — a work of great labor and responsibility, and 
which he performed with great care and fidelity. As a mark of the great activity 
and hopefulness of this eminent gentleman, we are told that, on the very evening of 
the entire completion of this code, his manuscripts were all consumed by fire ; but 
before the close of the next day, he sat down quietly in his office to reconstruct the 
edifice which had required years for its completion, but which had been destroyed in 
a single hour. 

In 1823, he was elected to Congress by the people of Louisiana ; and in 1829, he 
was returned for a seat in the United States Senate, by the legislature of the state. 
The journals of the upper and lower houses of Congress, while he was a member 
respectively of these bodies, show that he occupied a prominent position in the re- 
publican party. 

In 1831, Jackson having been elected to the highest post in the nation, called Mr. 
Livingston to the premiership in his cabinet, which office lie held during the first 
administration of the « Hero of New Orleans." On his second accession to the 
same office he tendered Mr. Livingston the mission to France, which he accepted, 
resigning the office of secretary of state, and sailed immediately for Paris. This 
was his last public service. He died at Rhinebeck, New York, on the 23d of May, 
1837, aged seventy-one years. 




DAVID HOSACK, M. D., LL. D., F. R. S 



DAVID HOSACK was born in the city of New York, August 31, 1769. He 
received his earlier instruction at a grammar school in New Jersey, and com- 
pleted his preparatory education in the school of Dr. Peter Wilson, at Hackensack, 
who was quite famous at that time for his thorough knowledge of, and his remark- 
able tact for, teaching the classic tongues. He spent two years in Columbia College, 
and then removed to Princeton to finish his academical studies, and was graduated 
at the latter institution in the autumn of 1789. 

At that time there were in our country no regular medical colleges, and the 
science was generally taught by physicians in a private capacity. Connected with 
Columbia College, however, were several of the most eminent medical gentlemen 
of the city, who in turn gave lectures on the various subjects connected with the 
materia medica, and who had access to the public benevolent institutions, the attend- 
ance on which was permitted to the young gentlemen attending the lectures. A 
similar arrangement existed also in the city of Philadelphia, under the patronage 
of the college of that city. Young Hosack availed himself of both these institu- 
tions, and finally received from the latter, in 1791, the degree of doctor of medicine. 

Dr. Hosack commenced his public career in Alexandria, District of Columbia, but 

47 



636 DAVID HOSACK, M. D., LL.D., F.R.S. 

after residing a year in that place he returned and took up his permanent residence 
in the city of New York, where his course was destined to be marked by every thing 
which constitutes the Samaritan Physician, and the good citizen. Not satisfied, 
however, with his attainments, he sailed for Europe in 1792; and after availing him- 
self of all the means afforded at Edinburgh, he repaired to London, where he was 
introduced to the most eminent physicians and surgeons of England, as well as 
many of the best scholars in other departments of science connected with his pro- 
fession. He divided his attention between surgery, materia medica, botany, min- 
eralogy, etc., etc. 

After spending two years abroad he returned to New York, and was soon after 
elected to the professorship of botany in Columbia College, and opened a school for 
the private instruction of young gentlemen who were intending to practise the pro- 
fession. Such was his popularity as a teacher, that his school was speedily filled. 

In the winter of 1795-6, Dr. Hosack formed a connection with the celebrated Dr. 
Samuel Bard, who, retiring from business, left to his care an extensive practice. 
During the prevalence of the yellow fever in New York, 1795-8, he won, by his 
devotion to his patients, his skill in the treatment, and his scientific researches into 
the causes, and means of cure and prevention of the disease, — which he sent forth 
to the world in learned and elaborate treatises, from time to time, — the highest 
eulogiums from the most eminent among his profession throughout the country, and 
the admiration of the world. 

On the death of Dr. W. P. Smith, professor of materia medica in Columbia Col- 
lege, this branch was united to that of botany, and Dr. Hosack elected to the joint 
professorship, which office he held until 1807, when the '• College of Physicians and 
Surgeons of the University of New York " was established. He was immediately 
called upon to preside over the departments of materia medica and midwifery, in a 
joint professorship, and on the remodelling of the school, in 1811, he was elected to 
the chair of the theory and practice of physic and chemical medicine. 

In the autumn of 1826, the " Rutger's Medical College" was established, — an 
institution destined to a brief existence, — on which Dr. Hosack* threw his influence 
into its scale, and assumed its principal chair. The legislature interfering, this school 
expired, and Dr. Hosack retired from the practice altogether ; and, having purchased 
the well-known estate of Hyde Park, devoted his time to such pursuits and studies 
as a cultivated and benevolent mind might delight in, and the luxurious remem- 
brances of a lonsr and useful life. 




COUNT RUMFORD. 



lENJAMIN THOMPSON, Count Rumford, was born in Woburn, Massa- 
chusetts, where he passed his childhood under the care of his parents, wlio 
gave him such education as their limited means permitted. He was a boy of 
promise, and when he reached maturity he selected the honorable profession of 
teaching, as more compatible with his state of health, and congenial to his taste. 
After teaching in various places, he went to Concord, New Hampshire, in 1772, and 
opened a school. His success as a teacher was very great, and, being of an in- 
genious turn of mind, he invented several useful and economical machines ; among 
them a stove quite famous in his day, and called the Rumford stove. 

Soon after going to Concord, Mr. Thompson espoused the eldest daughter of 
Rev. Timothy "Walker, the minister of that town, and resolved to make that village 
his future home. This was during the exciting controversies immediately preceding 
the revolution. Having espoused the cause of the king, he became obnoxious to 
the whigs of the Granite State, and when the war actually began, he was obliged to 
flee for safety. He went to Woburn, his native town, but found that he had but 
exemplified the truth of the homely maxim about the frying pan and the fire ; and 
he hastened to Boston, and threw himself upon the protection of the British flag. 



g38 COUNT RUMFORD. 

His talents — which were considerable — soon found employment. He was sent to 
England by General Gage, intrusted with important despatches to the British min- 
istry. Having reached England in safety, he attracted the attention of that govern- 
ment, and was immediately enlisted into its service. He remained there, engaged 
in honorable and lucrative employment, until the close of the war. 

In 1783, having received letters from influential persons in England, Mr. Thomp- 
son shaped his course for Germany. Here he was introduced to the Elector of Ba- 
varia, who, being pleased with his intelligence and address, immediately made pro- 
posals to him of honorable service. He remained in the service of the elector for a 
number of years, and made himself conspicuous both as a civilian and a military 
leader. While a resident of Munich, the capital of Bavaria, he held the command 
of the forces when that city was besieged and assaulted by the Austrian army, and 
conducted the defence in so prudent, energetic, and successful a manner, that he 
won the high encomiums of the elector and the people. He received also from the 
elector the title of " Count of the Holy Roman Empire," with an annuity of two 
thousand dollars. On receiving the title he took the name of Rumford^ that being 
the original name of Concord. 

While a resident of Munich, Count Rumford employed himself in correcting the 
abuses prevalent in that city. His efforts were very successful in the removal of 
vagrancy and mendicity, which had grown into a most intolerable nuisance, and 
made Munich the great lazar house of the Germanic States. It was while here, 
also, that he heard of the death of his wife, who deceased in 1792, at the age of 
fifty-two years, leaving a daughter about sixteen years of age. 

About the year 1796, Count Rumford sent to America for his daughter, who, un- 
der the protection of a friend of the family, immediately sailed for England, and 
passed overland to the capital of Bavaria. The father and child had been separated 
for nearly a score of years, and the meeting was one of deep interest to both of 
them. She now became a member of her father's household, and presided at his 
board during the remainder of his life. She was in Munich when the Austrian 
legions were surrounding it and threatened it with bombardment, a catastrophe 
which nothing but the stern courage and mighty energy of her father prevented. 

Having amassed a comfortable fortune, Count Rumford removed to Paris, where 
he lived until 1814, when he paid the debt due from all, at the age of nearly four- 
score years. He left his large property to his daughter, who, after many vicissitudes 
in the principal cities of Europe, returned once more to the place of her nativity, 
where she resided until the present year, when she died, and was " laid beside her 
mother, near the graves of the Walker family.*' 




EEV. LYMAN BEECHER, D.I). 



THIS distinguished clergyman, and father of distinguished clergymen, was born 
at New Haven, Connecticut, September 12, 1775. After acquiring the rudi- 
ments of an education at the common schools, he was fitted for college under the 
immediate supervision of his father's minister. After graduating in due course at 
Yale, he remained in the college two or three years, studying divinity under Dr. 
Dwight, who was then president of that institutioii. In 1798, he received his license 
to preach, and within a year he was called to take charge of the First Congregational 
Church and Society in East Hampton, on Long Island, New York. Here he labored 
for more than ten years, with a result that marked his fidelity to the duties of his 
office. 

In 1810, he removed to a new field of labor, and was settled as pastor over the 
First Congregational Society in Litchfield, Connecticut. For sixteen years he la- 
bored with great devotion as the overseer of this Christian flock. The result was 
soon manifest in the great increase in his church, and the elevation of the moral 
condition of his people. Having married, he found himself, ere long, surrounded 
with a numerous family, — "the clergyman's blessing" in those "good old times of 
the ministry," — and he set himself to work to improve the condition of the com- 



Q^Q REV. LYMAN BEECH ER, D. D. 

mtfiity in which his children were to be reared. He raised the standard of education 
in the schools, and became an efficient and successful laborer in the cause of tem- 
perance — a cause to wliis^ he has devoted his singular energies throughout a long 
life, and to which he is now as freshly devoted as in the jDalmy days of his early 
manhood. He also entered, heart and soul, into all the great questions of moral re- 
form which then began to agitate the churches. He was a prominent leader in the 
formation of the " Connecticut Missionary Society," the " Connecticut Education 
Society," the "American Bible Society," and many other associations of a literary 
and religious character. 

In 1826, he received an invitation from one of the churches of his faith in Boston. 
Thither he removed his family, and took charge of the Hanover Street Calvinistic 
Society, in the summer of that year. His mission to Boston w^as to revive the tone 
of Calvinism, which was thought to be yielding to the pressure of Unitarianism, 
about that time so flourishing in the " city of the Puritans." For six or seven years 
he labored with great zeal, and with considerable success. Dr. Channing, the cele- 
brated champion for the new phase of Congregationalism, was the pastor of the 
Federal Street Society, in the same city, and the course of each of these redoubt- 
ables was watched with much eagerness by their respective churches. It is quite too 
early in the day to state the result of that famous controversy between Puritanism 
and the more liberal faith. This is not to be estimated by the number of churches 
which flocked to either side, so much as to the general effect upon the creeds and 
spirit of both parties. That the bitterness of ancient controversy has subsided, that 
the harsher features of Calvinism have been softened, and the intellectual faith of 
their opponents quickened by the vitality of Puritanism, — this must be allowed, we 
think, by all candid men of either party. 

In 1832, Dr. Beecher received an appointment to the presidency of the "Lane 
Theological Seminary," at Cincinnati, Ohio. At the same time he was invited to 
take charge of the Second Presbyterian Church and Society in that city. He re- 
moved at once to that " queen city of the west," and assumed his double charge 
with a vigor, both of intellect and body, which showed that neither had reached the 
point of decay, although he had some time passed the ordinary prime of life. With 
the close of his duties in connection with that institution, which occurred two or 
three years ago, he resigned all public and official relations, and has since resided in 
Boston, enjoying the respect of all who know him, and the proud satisfaction of 
seeing his children — a numerous brotherhood — occupying commanding positions 
in society, and rendering themselves famous by their labors in the cause of truth and 
humanity. Henry Ward Beecher, the celebrated pastor of a church in Brooklyn, 
New York, is a son of his, besides two other sons who are gifted preachers of the 
gospel. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the successful authoress of " Uncle Tom's 
Cabin," — one of the most remarkable books which the present age has produced, 
— is also a member of this gifted family. Long may the venerable patriarch of 
this household, — now in his seventy-eighth year, a hale and vigorous old man, — 
long may he live to enjoy the rich rewards of an active and well-spent life. 




HON. JOSIAH S. JOHNSTON. 



JOSIAH STODDARD JOHNSTON, eldest son of Dr. John Johnston, an emi- 
nent physician of Connecticut, was born in the town of Salisbury, in the north- 
western part of that state, on the 25th of November, 1784. After spending his 
infancy and early childhood amidst the romantic scenery at the foot of the Green 
Mountains and the vicinity of the falls of the Housatonic River, at the age of six 
or seven his father removed with his family to Kentucky, not then admitted to the 
Union. At this period the country was but sparsely settled, and subject to the bloody 
incursions of the savages, who spread terror and confusion on every hand. 

At the age of twelve, young Johnston was sent to his Connecticut home to ac- 
quire the rudiments of an education, and on his return to Kentucky he was admitted 
to the University of Transylvania, at Lexington, from which institution he was 
graduated at the commencement of the present century. Studying law under the 
auspices of Mr. Nicholas, a leading member of the Kentucky bar, he opened an 
office in that city and commenced business. 

Desirous of a wider and newer field of operation, Mr. Johnston turned his atten- 
tion to the south-western territory, to which Louisiana had recently been added by 
its cession to the Union by purchase from the French. The population of this 



642 HON. JOSIAHS. JOHNSTON. 

territory was then exceedingly small, and its few inhabitants were principally settled 
along the banks of its rivers, in the immediate vicinity of some fort, which was deemed 
a necessary protection from the assaults of the Indians who infested the country. 
After travelling extensively through the whole region, he selected the valley of the 
Red River, and located himself at Alexandria, the site of an old Indian village, and 
a town of the parish of Rapides. Here he found himself in a country blessed with 
every physical facility for greatness, but held and governed by no law save such as 
the popular voice indicated, and where feuds, and quarrels, and bloodshed were of 
every-day occurrence. Firm, discreet, self-reliant, and just, he managed to escape 
any collisions with his neighbors, while he maintained his self-respect, and secured 
their good opinion. 

Devoting himself with indefatigable industry to the duties of his profession, Mr. 
Johnston soon rose to eminence, and on the assembling of the first territorial legis- 
lature at New Orleans, he was sent as a delegate from the parish in which he re- 
sided, holding his seat in that body until the admission of Louisiana as a state into 
the Union, in 1812, and respected as a leading man in the legislature. Soon after 
this event he was appointed by the new government a judge of the district where 
he lived, embracing the parish of Rapides and one or two other parishes adjoining it. 

In 1814, Louisiana was invaded by the English army, and the patriotism of the 
inhabitants was called into active exercise. Purchasing from his own purse arms 
and ammunition, Mr. Johnston raised and armed a considerable body of men, and 
assuming the command, he led his gallant band to New Orleans, and offered his 
services to General Jackson. But the decisive battle of the 8th of January had put 
an end to present hostilities, and the news of peace soon after reaching the country, 
the army was disbanded, and he returned from his bloodless campaign to the less 
warlike duties of his judicial office. Soon after, he married an amiable and ac- 
complished lady, the daughter of Dr. .John Sibley, of Natchitoches. 

In 1821, Judge Johnston was elected a member of the United States House of 
Representatives, and on the expiration of the term for which he was chosen, he was 
elected to fill the unexpired term in the United States Senate occasioned by the 
appointment of Mr. Brown as minister to France. On the fulfilment of this term, 
he was reelected to the same seat in 1825. In 1831, he was once more sent to the 
Senate by a legislature where his political opponents were in majority ; his patriot- 
ism, justice, integrity, and ability outweighing all political considerations. Twice 
during his senatorial career he had been strongly solicited to allow his name to be 
used as a candidate for governor of his adopted state; but believing that his services 
were needed more in the sphere he occupied, he steadily declined. His death 
occurred on the morning of the 19th of May, 1833, on board the steamer Lioness, 
which was blown up by gunpowder on the Red River, and which sadly terminated 
the valuable lives of many other citizens. 




HENRY WARE, JR., D. D. 



HENRY WARE, Jr., son to Rev. Henry Ware, D. D., was born in Hingham, 
Massachusetts, April 21, 1794. His earliest education was a religious one — 
not that the common branches of education were not taught, but that his deep re- 
ligious nature, even as a child, made all his studies subserve the one great purpose 
of his life, which was to become a Christian minister. His very aspect was, unlike 
that of most other boys, the type of the future man, serious and meditative. 
Perhaps a constitutional delicacy added to the effect. Yet he was not a gloomy 
child. An habitual smile expressed the sweetness of his disposition, and his strong 
sense of enjoyment in all the common delights of life. When he was twelve his 
father received the appointment of professor of divinity in Harvard College, and re- 
moved with his family to Cambridge, where, soon after, he lost his mother, an event 
which made a deep impression on his young mind. His early poetry often has 
allusion to her blessed memory. 

In 1808, Mr. Ware entered the freshmen class at Cambridge, where he was grad- 
uated in August, 1812, having been assigned a poem for his commencement per- 
formance. On leaving college he became an assistant teacher in the academy at 
Exeter, New Hampshire. W^hile in college, and afterward at Exeter, he cherished 

48 



544 HENRY WARE, JR., D. D. 

the idea of adopting the profession of his father, and shaped his reading to that end ; 
and while in the latter place, where he remained two years, he went through quite a 
course of theological studies. 

At the close of the second year, Mr. Ware resigned his office of teacher at Exeter, 
and returned to Cambridge, where he finished his theological studies, was licensed, 
and commenced preaching. After supplying for a short period several vacant pul- 
pits, he was invited to settle as the pastor of the Second Church and Society in 
Boston, whose place of worship was situated in Hanover Street, and he was or- 
dained accordingly, on the 1st of January, 1816. His father officiated as preacher 
on the occasion. Perhaps no man ever entered on the duties of his mission with 
purer purpose or a more hopeful heart, and few have enjoyed so much satisfaction 
in the parochial tie. He loved his flock as a patriarch, and they in turn gave him 
their spontaneous love and reverence. In October of the same year he was mar- 
ried to Miss Eliza Watson Waterhouse, daughter of Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, of 
Cambridge. 

On the establishment of the " Christian Examiner," as the organ of the Unitarian 
body, in 1819, he became its editor, and continued to occupy that post three years, 
when his failing health compelled him to resign the charge. 

In March, 1823, Mr. Ware lost a child, and in February, 1824, it was followed by 
its excellent mother. This double bereavement produced a deep effect in the heart 
of this excellent man. They were the first real trials of his life, and they were borne 
with a heroism which could only be the fruit of a deep religious principle, and a faith, 
living and cloudless, in His rectitude who orders all events. 

In 1826, he was obliged to take a journey for the restoration of his health, which, 
never strong, had yielded to the severe pressure of his various labors. He travelled 
through the State of New York, visiting Niagara and other points of interest, and 
returned with his health greatly improved. On his way back he assisted in the 
dedication of the Second Unitarian Church in the city of New York. He was in- 
vited to take charge of the congregation, but declined. 

In .lune, 1827, he was married to Miss Mary Lovell Pickard, of Boston, and the 
altars of his home, which had been thrown down by the visitation of death, were once 
more built up, and the fire of a pure affection rekindled thereon. About a year after 
this last marriage he was seized with severe illness while fulfilling a professional 
ensao-ement in the interior of the state, which so shattered his frame that he never 
fully recovered from it. A long journey on horseback partially restored his health , 
but he was still so feeble as to feel compelled to ask the aid of a colleague, which 
was granted him, and, in 1828, Mr. R. W. Emerson was ordained accordingly. 

At the same time, a new professorship having been established at Cambridge, Mr. 
Ware was invited to assume the discharge of its duties, and conditionally accepted 
it. He first made a voyage to Europe for the restoration of his health, and on his 
return, in 1830, he removed to Cambridge, and entered at once upon his duties as 
professor of " pulpit eloquence and pastoral care." He held the office twelve years, 
and was then compelled to resign it on account of a complete failure of his health. 
In 1842, he removed with his family to Framingham, where he lingered about twelve 
months, when he died, on the 21st of September, 1843, in the forty-ninth year of 
his age. 




^^--^- ^^^ 



MRS. MARY L. WARE. 



MARY L, PICKARD was the daughter of an English merchant, who came to 
this country on business, and who became so well pleased with it that he con- 
cluded to make it his residence. He married and was settled in Boston, where the 
subject of this notice was born on the 2d of October, 1798. When she was three 
years of age her parents visited England and Scotland, taking the child with them, 
a circumstance which she never forgot. They spent more than a year abroad, 
when they returned to Boston. Her father lived in the same block with T. H. 
Perkins, Esq., with whose daughter little Mary formed an acquaintance which con- 
tinued through life, and became a great source of enjoyment to her in after years. 

When she was thirteen she was sent to Hingham, Massachusetts, to school, and 
placed under the care of the Misses Gushing, whose institution enjoyed a well-earned 
celebrity. She immediately won the esteem of her instructors, and established her 
reputation as a bright scholar and most exemplary child. At the end of six months, 
her mother dying, she returned to Boston, and became an important member of her 
father's household ; and by her prudence and active zeal, for eleven years, until the 
death of her father, she did much toward supplying the great loss which the family 
had sustained in the decease of its maternal head. Daring this period she was sent 



g46 MRS. MaRY L. ware. 

to school, sometimes in Boston, and at others at Hingham and elsewhere, where, 
although she exhibited no particular brilliancy of intellect, her progress was such as 
to give entire satisfaction to her father and all her friends. 

In 1814-15, her father lost his property, a misfortune which seemed only to de- 
velop the angelic temper of the daughter. Her letters to her father under this trial 
exhibit an amount of Christian philosophy scarcely to be expected in one so young. 
She early gave evidence of possessing a religious turn of mind, and when she was 
seventeen she joined herself to the church, after much pondering the question of 
duty in her own mind. 

On the death of her father, in 1823, she went to England and Scotland to visit 
the relatives of her parents, with whom she seems to have found constant exercise 
for her sympathy and her hands, and to whom, in the sick chamber and at the bed 
of death, she became a ministering angel. After spending more than two years 
abroad, she returned once more to her native city. 

Before she went to Europe she had become a great admirer of Dr. Channing's 
preaching, as also that of Henry Ware, Jr. While she was in England, Mr. Ware 
buried his first wife, and on her return, in 1826, she was often in his society- A 
mutual and strong interest in each other soon manifested itself, the result of which 
was an engagement of marriage, and she became the wife of that most excellent 
man on the 11th of June, 1827, Dr. Gannet officiating on the occasion. Mr. Ware 
was settled over the Second Church, in Boston, in 1817, and Mrs. Ware immediately 
entered upon her new and double relation of wife and mother, Mr. Ware having 
children by his former wife. " She gave herself up to all her duties," says her 
biographer. Rev. Mr. Hall, "at once and unreservedly," calling her "responsibility" 
a blessing instead of a burden, and ingratiating herself inio the affections of her hus- 
band, his children, and parish. 

The health of Mr. Ware, always delicate, failed him so soon after this event that 
he was compelled to seek its restoration by a voyage to Europe, in which she was 
his companion, sharing its perils, alleviating its burdens, and cheering its despond- 
ency with her pleasant words, and sunny smiles, and angel acts, and causing her 
husband to rejoice in the Providence which had "given him such a treasure." 

In 1830, Mr. Ware was called to a new professorship in the divinity school con- 
nected with Harvard College, and he removed to Cambridge at once, and entered 
upon the discharge of his duties. Here, for the period of twelve years, struggling 
constantly with ill health, and combating continually "the wolf at the door," she 
shared his lot, an angel of mercy at his side, the beloved of all the officers of the 
university and their families, and respected and honored by all the residents of 
Cambridge. 

But continued ill health compelled Mr. Ware to resign his office in 1842, when he 
retired to Framingham, where he died the following year. The death of her be- 
loved husband was a terrible blow to the affectionate wife, but she speedily recovered 
from the appearance of suffering, and went about her household duties and met her 
friends with that calm smile which so plainly tells of the burden at the heart, which 
is silently preying on health and sapping the life. 

" What a beauliftd day to ffo home!" was her exclamation, as the windows of her 
chamber were thrown open on a lovely April day, in 1849. It was the day on which 
she " went home." 




HON. PELIX GRUNDY. 



IjlELIX GRUNDY was born in Berkley county, in Virginia, on the 11th of 
September, 1777. In 1780, his father removed to Kentucky, then the seat of 
the most sanguinary Indian depredations. In one of his speeches in Congress, 
alluding to those trying times, he says, "■ I was too young, Mr. President, to par- 
ticipate in these dangers and difficulties ; but I can well remember when death was 
in almost every bush, and when every thicket concealed an ambuscade." This state 
of things was not favorable to education, but his bereaved mother determined to 
give him all the chances in her power to obtain a classical education. Being the 
seventh son, she determined, according to the superstition of the times, to have him 
study medicine, and pursue the profession which nature had so plainly indicated in 
the circumstances of his birth. Accordingly he was sent to the celebrated academy 
of Dr. Priestley, in Bardstown, Kentucky. He remained here a few years, making 
great proficiency in his studies, and securing the respect and affection of his teacher, 
an attachment which lasted until his death. 

On leaving school, his marked preference for the law decided him to contemn the 
oracular indications of his birth, and adopt the legal profession. He completed 
his studies under the care of Colonel George Nichols, then one of the ablest coun- 



648 HON. FELIX GRUNDY. 

sellers at the Kentucky bar. He soon rose to eminence, and became one of the 
most promising members of the rising bar, while his power of debate and argu- 
ment marked him as a suitable person to be intrusted with the political affairs of 
the state he lived in. 

In 1799, Mr. Grundy was chosen a member of the committee called to revise the 
constitution of tire State of Kentucky, and took a very prominent part in the labors 
of that body. The same year he was chosen to the legislature, where for several 
years he distinguished himself by his efforts in procuring a new code of laws. He 
served in the legislature until the autumn of 1806, when he was appointed one ot 
the judges of the Supreme Court of Errors and Appeals, and in a short time after 
he was appointed chief justice of the Superior Court of Kentucky, that high post 
having been vacated by Judge Todd, who had been promoted to the chief justice- 
ship of the United States. 

His salary not being sufficient for the support of his growing family, he resigned 
the office in 1808, and removed to Nashville, Tennessee, and once more devoted 
himself to the business of his profession. His reputation as a sound lawyer and 
eloquent barrister had preceded him, and he at once entered into an extensive and 
lucrative practice, being called to practise in the courts of Kentucky, Alabama, Missis- 
sippi, and Illinois. He was especially successful in the department of criminal de- 
fence, losing only one case out of one hundred. No jury, it was said, could resist 
his eloquence, and he stood for years at the very top of the Tennessee bar. 

In 1811, he was sent to Congress. As a mark of the great confidence he had 
inspired, he Avas placed on the committee of foreign relations. This was on the 
very advent of the war, and was, consequently, a most responsible station. Here 
he continued during the whole of the war that soon after succeeded, giving his 
hearty support to Mr. Madison and the prosecution of the war. 

At the close of the war Mr. Grundy retired to Nashville, and resumed his pro- 
fessional pursuits. But he was soon called once more into public life, and served 
his fellow-citizens of Nashville for six years in the state legislature. 

In 1829, he was elected to a seat in the United States Senate, which he held 
during the entire administration of President Jackson, being one of his firmest sup- 
porters and friends. In 1839, he was called by Mr. Van Buren to assume the office 
of attorney general in his cabinet; and in 1840, was once more elected to a seat in 
the Senate of the United States, but was never permitted to occupy it, having been 
summoned, in the month of December of the same year, to another world, at the 
age of sixty-three years. 




WILLIAM R. KING, 



WILLIAM RUFUS KING, the late Vice President of the United States, was 
born in the State of North Carolina, in the year 1786. There is nothing in 
his early life that would be worth recording here. He was not a brilliant boy, but 
a constant application of his mind to the subject in hand enabled him to surmount 
difficulties at which many a genius would have stumbled and fell. At a very early 
age he entered into political life, and his fellow-citizens showed their estimation of 
his abilities and honesty by intrusting him with several minor offices, the faithful 
discharge of the duties of which led them to select him to represent their interests 
in Congress, before he was twenty-five years of age. 

In 1811, Mr. King took his seat in the House of Representatives in Congress, and 
served acceptably to his constituency for two terms. Not long after the close of this 
service he removed into the territory of Alabama, then about to become a state. 
When it was admitted to the Union, he was chosen United States senator from the 
new state, with John W. Walker for his associate, who served the short term, and 
was succeeded by William Kelly, in 1822. 

Mr. King continued a member of the Senate from 1819 to 1844, a period of twen- 
ty-five years, without any intermission ; a longer time, we believe, than any other 



650 WILLIAM R. KING. 

man has borne that high office. We think we do no injustice to any member of that 
body during this period, when we assert that a more faithful, diligent, and consistent 
member of that body could scarcely be found than the first senator from Alabama. 

In the latter part of the year 1844, John Tyler nominated Mr. King to the Senate, 
as minister to the couit of France. Being confirmed in the appointment, he resigned 
his seat in the Senate, and sailed forthwith on his mission. The unexpired term of 
his senatorial service was filled by Dixon H. Lewis, as his successor. 

Upon the arrival of Mr. King in Paris, he was received with marked distinction, 
and on his presentation at court, the King of the French made the following ad- 
dress : " Mr. King, I am not unacquainted with your eminence in the American 
republic. I know with how much ability you have filled many posts of honor; and 
I am glad that a man t)f so much experience, and so much fame as a statesman, 
represents that great republic of yours at this court. Be assured that I shall lose no 
opportunity of extending to you my confidence, and demonstrating to you my re- 
spect. Happily there are no causes of difference between our governments ; and I 
give you my honest assurance, if any question of embarrassment should arise during 
your residence here, that I will endeavor, the very moment it comes up, to remove 
every occasion of difficulty. I have lived in the United States ; I know your people, 
and I am glad to greet you here." 

Mr. King represented his government in the court of Louis Philippe, with great 
credit to himself and satisfaction to his country generally, until 1847, when he re- 
turned to the United States, and was succeeded in office by Richard Rush, of Penn- 
sylvania. 

In 1849, Mr. King was called by the citizens of Alabama to represent them once 
more in the Senate of the United States. This was the commencement of the ad- 
ministration of the lamented Taylor, by who'se untimely death it passed into the 
nands of Mr. Fillmore. Mr. King was chosen to succeed Mr. Fillmore as pro tern 
president of the Senate, and consequently acting Vice President of the United 
States. 

At the assembling of the democratic convention at Baltimore, in 1852, General 
Pierce, of New Hampshire, was put in nomination for the office of President, and 
Mr. King for that of Vice President, and the result was the triumphant election of 
both candidates. But he was not permitted to enjoy his new and well-deserved 
honors. His health, which had long been precarious, now failed him altogether, and 
his disease assumed the most alarming symptoms. He soon found himself the 
doomed victim of that scourge of our climate, consumption. After trying the usual 
remedies without success, he was sent to Cuba, at the expense of the government, 
to try the effect of change of climate. But death had marked him for his own, and 
he returned just in season to expire in the bosom of his family at the age of sixty- 
seven years. 




^^^iir^A^^. ^S- 



DR. A. S. DOANE. 



AUGUSTUS SIDNEY DOANE was born in the city of Boston on the 2(1 
of April, 1808. He received his early education at the excellent schools of this 
American Athens. His early years were marked by great gentleness of character, 
vivacity of manners, and an earnest love of letters. Such was his proficiency in his 
studies that he was prepared to enter.college at the juvenile age of eleven years ; but 
the solicitude of friends would not suffer him to be exposed to the trials and tempta- 
tions of college life until two years afterwards, when, in 1821, he was matriculated 
at Harvard university, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

After an honorable course in college, IVIr. Doane was graduated with the double 
degree of bachelor of arts and doctor of medicine. Soon after leaving the university 
he went to Paris, where he passed two years in attendance upon the lectures of the 
medical institutions of that city, storing his mind with much valuable knowledge in 
the various sciences connected with his chosen profession, and acquiring a skilful use 
of the scalpel. After visiting most of the principal cities in Europe, he returned to 
his native city and commenced the practice of medicine. 

Wishing to enlarge the sphere of his action, in 1830 Dr. Doane removed to New 

49 



652 D R. A . S . D A N E . 

York, where he soon acquired the repvitation of a skilful, carefi>l, and successful 
physician. Before his removal from Boston he married Miss Gordon, the daughter 
of an eminent merchant of that city, by whom he had six children. 

In 1832, the Asiatic cholera made great ravages in New York, and Dr. Doane was 
unremitting in his care of the victims of that dreadful plague. Seeking out his 
patients from the lowest and most impure haunts of the affrighted city, night and 
day found him at the bedside of such as had been deserted by their friends, adminis- 
tering to their wants with his own hands, and animating their desponding hearts by 
words of comfort and of hope. The cheerful tones of his musical voice were health- 
ful music to many a stricken son and daughter of the human family, some of whom 
will remember to the last the inspiriting visitations of this " good physician." He 
thus became endeared to the common people ; and his practice — which was by no 
means lucrative, for he made it a principle to g-ice his services to the very poor — 
became extensive. 

In 1839, Dr. Doane received the appointment of professor of physiology in the 
university of New York. Shortly after, the difficulties which arose in the university 
caused him to resign in conjunction with the other professors. The year following 
he was appointed chief physician to the " JNIarine Hospital." His position as '• Health 
Officer," brought him once more into contact with the suffering and miserable ; and 
again the same Samaritan goodness and unfailing devotion marked his intercourse 
with the WTctched emigrants who came under his charge. 

In 1843, Dr. Doane was superseded in this office ; and on his retiring he received 
the thanks of the various " Emigrant Societies " for his " unwearied zeal and hu- 
manity in behalf of that class most dependent on his services." The next seven 
years he spent in the practice of his profession ; part of the time as physician to the 
Astor House, and in 1849, during the prevalence of the cholera in that city, as one of 
the ward physicians. In 1850, he was reappointed " Health Officer," and once more 
removed to Staten Island. Here the old zeal and unselfish devotion to the suffering 
emigrant marked the remnant of his too brief but eminently useful life. While su- 
perintending the removal of sick emigrants from the impure hold of a packet ship to 
the hospital he caught the contagion, and, after lingering for a few days, died on the 
27th of January, 1852, in the prime of life and in the midst of gi-eat usefulness, being 
only forty-four years of age. 

Dr. Doane was not only the good physician ; in all the business of life he was an 
honest man, a kind friend, and a perfect gentleman. In his home he was idolized, 
loved by an unusually large circle of intelligent friends, and respected by the whole 
community. In his death the poor lost a counsellor, benefactor, and warmhearted 
friend. 

The literary attainments of Dr. Doane were very highly respectable. He was per- 
fect master of several living languages, and the products of his pen show him to 
have been a thoughtful and versatile student. 




S. E. B. MORSE. 



CADMUS, Faust, Copernicus, Franklin, Watt, Fulton, Morse I — names worthy 
to be grouped and recorded on the same immortal page, as the gi-eatest dis- 
coverers and benefactors of tlieir race ! — the inventors and discoverers of letters, 
printing, the theory of the solar system, the electrical machine, the application of 
steam, and the telegraph I 

Samuel Finley Breese Morse, whose fame is forever connected with the mighty 
and wonderful telegraph, was the son of the early American geogi-apher. Rev. Dr. 
Morse, and was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, on the 27th of April, 1791. 
His father had determined him for a clergyman ; but nature called him to a higher 
station. His own early predilections were for the easel and pencil, and his father, 
finding his purposes too strong for his wishes, reluctantly consented that he should 
" throw himself away." After graduating at Yale college, in New Haven, he sailed 
for Europe in 1811, and arrived in London in August of the same year. Here he 
formed a strong attachment for Leslie, another young American, who, like himself, 
was seeking to investigate the mysteries of art, and their first efforts were mutually 
upon each other's portraits. 



654 S. F. B. MORSE 

Making the most rapid progress in his studies, Mr. INIorse exhibited at the Royal 
Academy, within tAvo years, his colossal picture of " The Dying Hercules," which 
attracted much attention and elicited great praise. He also exhibited at the same 
time a plaster model of the same, which bore off the prize in sculpture. Before he 
left London he completed his great picture of " The Judgment of Jupiter," but was 
not permitted to be a competitor for the prize, as he was compelled to return to the 
United States before the day of exhibition. 

After spending several years in Boston, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, he 
finally settled down in New York in 1822, where he found his talents appreciated, 
and he soon had all the work he could do. He painted for the city a full-length 
likeness of Lafayette, who was then on a visit to this country ; soon after which he 
formed an association of artists which was the nucleus of the " National Academy 
of Design," and of which he was elected the first president. He also delivered the 
first course of lectures on the subject of the arts ever listened to by an American 
public. 

In 1829, Mr. Morse made his second voyage to Europe ; and it was on his return 
home in the good ship Sully that he received his first hint on that great subject 
which has since agitated the world so widely and completely. One of his fellow- 
passengers gave him an account of several experiments he had recently witnessed in 
Paris with the electro-magnet, by which the electric fluid was conveyed by a metallic 
thread a hundred feet. It instantly suggested itself to his mind that it might be just 
as easily and speedily conveyed a thousand miles, and be made to carry along with 
it an intelligible communication. The next thing to be done was to invent and con- 
struct an apparatus for the recording of the messages so conveyed. After much 
study and many failures, he hit upon the true expedient just as he was about despair- 
ing of success, and immediately filed his caveat in the patent office in the city of 
Washington in the year 1837. 

After clearly demonstrating the feasibility of the thing, he was aided in putting up 
his wires betAveen the cities of Baltimore and Washington ; and the first public mes- 
sage that went over the line was the annunciation of the nomination of James K. 
Polk to the presidency. He had now won a triumph which the malice of many dis- 
appointed philosophers could not prevent ; and to-day his telegraphic wires 

" Put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes :" 

for all nations have adopted them, and men hold converse with each other who are 
thousands of miles apart as easily as if they were in the same sitting room. 

Mr. Morse has established his fortune and his fame ; and his name will forever 
rank among the gi-eatest of the earth's discoverers. He has received several gratify- 
ing tokens, as well from foreign nations as from his own government. The sultan 
of Turkey sent him " The Order of Glory," with a diploma of the same encircled 
with diamonds ; the king of Prussia sent him, also, a gold snuffbox, set with bril- 
liants, enclosing in its lid the "Prussian Gold Medal of Scientific Merit;" and the 
king of Wurtemberg transmitted to him " The Wurtemberg Gold Medal of Arts 
and Sciences." He has never forsaken his art, and now resides on the banks of the 
noble Hudson, near the city of Poughkeepsie. 



1 




REV. ADONIRAM JUDSON, D.D. 



ADONIRAM JUDSON, the pioneer of American missionaries, was born at 
Maiden, Massachusetts, on the 9th of August, 1788. After a thorough prep- 
aration in the schools of his native town and the study of his father, who was the 
settled minister of the place, he entered Brown University, from which institution 
he was honorably graduated in 1807. While in college his mind was much troubled 
with sceptical opinions ; but after a while his doubts were cleared up, and he entered 
the theological school at Andover, and completed his studies. While at Andover, 
his attention was turned to the subject of missions; and there being no association 
for the aid of missions in the United States, he went to England to place himself 
under the patronage of the " English Foreign Missionary Society." On his way out 
he was taken prisoner by a French cruiser and carried to Bayonne, where he suffered 
a few months' imprisonment, and was then released on his parole. He proceeded to 
London ; but finding no encouragement, he returned to America, and persuaded the 
" Massachusetts Congregational Association " to form the nucleus of the " American 
Foreign Missionary Society," under whose patronage he decided to proceed at once 
to India. 



658 R E V . A D O N I R A M J U D S O N , D . D . 

Oil the 5th of February, 1812, Mr. Judson was married to Ann Hasseltine ; on the 
16th he was ordained at Salem, and on the 19th, in company with his wife, together 
with Mr. and Mrs. Newell, embarked at that port in the brig Caravan. Their time 
was employed during the passage in studious preparation for their work ; and while 
thus engaged, the change in Mr. Judson's views of baptism occurred, which brought 
him into immediate connection with the Baptist church. They arrived at Calcutta 
on the 18th of June, and accepted the hospitalities of the English missionaries at 
Serampore, (the venerable Dr. Carey, Marshman, and Ward, the pioneers of Chris- 
tian missions in India,) with whom they entered into friendly deliberations as to the 
field which they should occupy. 

Such, however, was the jealousy of the local government, that they found their 
lot an exceedingly uncomfortable one, and asked and obtained permission to go to the 
Isle of France. After laboring here for a while, the missionaries, panting for a wider 
field of labor, left the island, and proceeded to Madras, and thence to Rangoon, the 
chief city of the Burman empire in India. Here they labored with great zeal, and 
set up a printing press, opened schools, built a church and mission houses, and Dr. 
Judson commenced his great work of translating and printing the Bible into the 
native tongue. 

The following year, a Christian physician, Dr. Jonathan Price, joined the mission. 
He visited Ava in his professional character, and was favorably received by the em- 
peror. This event opened the way for Dr. Judson to go to Ava as a missionary, 
where he enjoyed for a brief period the privilege of preaching in the very gates of the 
imperial palace. But on the breaking out of the English war, the missionaries were 
broken up, and cast into prison, where they suffered a long and distressing captivity. 
The following year, also, occurred the death of Mrs. Judson, under circumstances 
of particular affliction. 

On their release from their cruel captivity, Mr. Judson removed to Amherst, 
and placed himself under the protection of the English ; and here he devoted himself 
with great vigor to the completion of his important work. Eight years after the 
death of his first wife, he married the widow of the Rev. George D. Boardman, who 
had laid down his life in the Burman wilds, as a missionary. In 1845, the health of 
Mrs. Judson was such that it was thought advisable that she should make the voyage 
to the United States, and her husband resolved to accompany her. They accordingly 
sailed, but had not been long at sea when she died. Stopping at St. Helena to give 
sepulture to the remains of his most excellent \\dfe, he pursued his voyage, and landed 
at Boston in October, 1845. 

While on this visit to his native land. Dr. Judson married Miss Emily Chubbuck, 
of Utica, New York, a gifted lady, who has writt largely under the sobriquet of 
" Fanny Forrester." On returning to Burmah once more, he devoted himself with 
renewed zeal to his Christian labors. After three years of incessant toil, his robust 
constitution broke down, and it was deemed necessary that he should try the effects 
of a sea voyage. Accordingly he resolved to visit the Isle of Bourbon, and embarked 
on board a ship and sailed. But the close of his labors was at hand, and after a few 
days' sail his disease exhibited most alarming phases. All appliances failing to relieve 
him, he expired on the 12th day of April, 1850, without a struggle or a groan, and 
with his whole soul illumined with the love of that heavenly Father to whom he had 
devoted all the energies of his being. 




MISS SARAH JANE CLARKE, 

KNOWN throughout the literary circles of the United States by her nomme de 
plume, " Grace Greenwood," was born in Onondaga, a village in the interior 
of the State of New York. She was descended of the true New England stock, her 
parents being related to both the Puritan and Huguenot races. In her childhood her 
father removed to the western part of Pennsylvania, within view of that high, moun- 
tainous ridge which divides the great valley of the west from the rich arable lands and 
coalfields of the Keystone State. ,Jt was in this region of "wilderness beauty" that 
her young heart and understanduig were developed ; and she early drank in the dews 
of intellectual and poetic knowledge. Her earliest lispings were in numbers, and her 
youthful compositions were indicative of the aftergrowth of her mind. 

As she grew to womanhood, she was persuaded to commit some of her fugitive 
pieces to the press, when they excited considerable interest in the rural district in 
which she resided. In 1844, she was induced to send a communication, in the 
shape of a letter, to the " New Mirror," then under the charge of Messrs. Morris and 
Willis. To this letter she subscribed herself as Grace Greemvood. Struck with the 
vivacity, piquancy, and playful wit with which the communication abounded, the 

50 



660 MISS SARAH JANE CLARKE. 

editors encouraged her to proceed, and the name of Grace Greenwood has become 
the synonyme for the beautiful, dashing, sparkling, and racy in the light literature 
of the day. Her contributions to the New Mirror have been copied into all the 
literary journals in the nation, and have filled a large space in the journals of the old 
world. 

Besides these more ephemeral productions, Miss Clarke has published several vol- 
umes of poems, which occupy a respectable rank in the department of poetry ; also 
a book for children, full of that charming naivete which is so acceptable and delight- 
ful in the nursery. She has the rare facility of combining instruction with her 
lightest productions, and a pure morality pervades every line that falls from her pen. 
There is, too, sometimes a depth of pathos and strength of feeling pervading her 
more serious pieces, which shows great capabilities for baring the strongest and most 
hidden chords of human nature. 

Miss Clarke has acquired a reputation which few ladies have reached, and deserves 
to be placed among the gifted women of our land. We are glad to present her face 
and mind to the readers of the " Illustrated American Biography." If any are 
desirous to know aught of her form or figure, we must refer them to Mrs. Sarah J- 
Hale, who thus discourses upon this subject: — 

" In person. Miss Clarke is neither large nor small. Her height is a little above 
the middle size. Her form combines delicacy w4th agility and vigor. Her mien, 
and carriage, voice, gesture, and action, all manifest, by the most perfect correspond- 
ence of a natural language, her rich variety of intellectual powers and moral senti- 
ments — the physical answering to the mental, in all that susceptible nobility of 
temperament which endows genius with its 'innate experiences' and universality of 
life. Her head is of the finest order, and larger than the Grecian model, whose 
beauty it rivals in symmetrical development. The forehead is high, broad, and 
classic. Her brows are delicately pencilled. Her complexion is a light olive, or 
distinct brunette, and as changeable as the play of fancy and the hues of emotion. 
Her eyes are deep, full orbs of living light; their expression is not thoughtfulness, 
but its free revealings — not feeling, but its outgushings. Just as her poetry is never 
penned till perfectly matured, so her thoughts and feelings leap, and play, and flow 
in the flashing light, free from all sign of mental elaboration." 




GEORGE M. DALLAS. 



"^ EORGE MIFFLIN DALLAS was bom in the city of Philadelphia on the 
X 10th of July, 1792. His father, Alexander J. Dallas, was a prominent politician 
and statesman in the earlier history of our government, and belonged to the school 
of Jefferson, during whose administration he was appointed district attorney of the 
state of Pennsylvania. He was one of the cabinet of Mr. Madison, and presided 
over the treasury department. His son George was educated at the best schools in 
Philadelphia, and afterwards was sent to the New Jersey college, from which he was 
gi-aduated in 1810 with the highest honors of his class. Determining to pursue the 
study of the law, he entered the office of his father ; and having there completed his 
necessary clerkship, he was admitted to the bar in 1813. 

Albert Gallatin having been appointed a commissioner to the Russian court, he 
selected young Dallas as his private secretary. He accordingly sailed for " the ice- 
bound region of the Ursa Major" soon after his admission to the bar. "While abroad 
he travelled extensively, visiting Russia, Holland, France, England, and the Nether- 
lands. He travelled with a discriminating eye, and treasured up much valuable in- 
formation respecting the governments of the several places which he visited, and 



662 G E R G E M . D A L L A S . 

whjch he turned to wise account when he became involved in the political actions 
of his own government. 

In 1814, during the prevalence of the war between the United States and England, 
he returned to his own country. His father, who was then secretary of the treasury 
under ]\Ir. Madison, called him to Washington to aid him in his arduous and com- 
plicated duties. Here he remained until the conclusion of the war, when he once 
more returned to Philadelphia and commenced the practice of his profession, in which 
he displayed great skill. 

In 1817, Mr. Dallas was appointed deputy attorney general of the state of Penn- 
sylvania, in which station his reputation as a sound lawyer and criminal pleader rose 
rapidly and permanently. He was a man of great popularity among the members 
of the democratic party, and took a conspicuous part in the political action of the 
stormy times he lived in. In 1825, he was elected to the mayoralty of his native 
city, an office which he filled with ability. In 1829, when general Jackson was 
elevated to the presidency, he was made attorney general of the state. This office 
had been held by his father during the administration of Mr. Jefferson. He remained 
in this highly responsible station but two years, during which he showed himself to 
be a worthy representative of the first Dallas, and won the good opinions and secured 
the friendship of the whole bench and bar. 

In 1831, Mr. Dallas was elected to the senate of the United States, and took his 
seat in that dignified body in December of that year. In the stormy debates of the 
following session, as well as that of 1832-33, he took a prominent part. At the 
close of the last-named session he declined a reelection, and gave himself once more 
to the practice of his favorite profession. 

In 1837, on the accession of Mr. Van Buren to the presidency, Mr. Dallas was 
offered an ambassadorship to Russia. Accepting the appointment, he went thither 
the same year, and remained there until 1839, when he returned to the United States 
and recommenced the practice of the law^ in his native city. 

In the autumn of 1844, Mr. Dallas was elected vice president of the United States, 
with James K. Polk as president. On the 4th of March, 1845, he took his seat as 
president of the senate of the United States by virtue of his office. He presided 
with great dignity and urbanity over the deliberations of this illustrious body until 
the 4th of March, 1849, when he gracefully relinquished the mace to his successor in 
office, Millard Fillmore, who had been elected in conjunction with general Zachary 
Taylor as president, and who, on the death of that gallant soldier, the year following, 
became acting president of the United States. 

Since the retirement of Mr. Dallas from the head of the senate, he has passed his 
time in the quiet retirement of home and in the discharge of his professional business. 




SAMUEL SLATER. 



WHO are the greatest men, those who discover and conquer a reahn, or those 
who develop its true resources? is a question beginning ah-eady to receive 
a very different answer from what would have been given a century since. The 
glitter and pomp of conquest dazzled the moral sense of the world, and won the 
meed belonging only to moral greatness. But the schoolmaster is abroad, and men 
are beginning to understand how truly is he a greater man who carries bread to a 
famishing household, or knowledge to them that sit in the shadow of death, than a 
hero of a hundred battles, bespangled and bespattered as he is with gold and gore. 
The noblest hero of them all, " from Macedonia's madman to the Swede," must 
"take a lower seat," when he presents himself, "all unknown to fame," whose only 
exploits have been " going about doing good." 

Samuel Slater is one of those great and good men whose genius and whose 
unquenchable faith have largely blessed our land. He was " the father of spindles," 
in America — or rather, he was the first successful introducer of cotton spinning, 
which has become so large and important an element in the growth and prosperity 
of these United States. He was born near Belper, in the county of Derby, England, 



Q64: 



SAMUEL SLATER 



on the 9th day of June, 1768. His father was a thriving and independent farmer, 
and was also engaged with certain manufactures in the neighborhood, being con- 
sidered a man of influence and wealth. Samuel's early education was carefully 
looked after, so that, when he lost his father at the age of fourteen, he was in some 
measure prepared to enter upon the busy theatre of life and act for himself. He had 
early manifested a strong taste for mechanics, and took a deep interest in the ma- 
chinery of a cotton mill conducted by a Mr. Strutt, in which the capital of his father 
was largely employed. 

While his father was on his death bed young Slater was indented in due form as 
apprentice to Mr. Strutt to learn the art and mystery of spinning cotton yarn. He 
faithfully served out his time, and made himself very serviceable to his master, by 
suggesting several improvements in his machinery, which were adopted and found 
to be serviceable. He won the entire confidence of his master, who contemplated tak- 
ing him into partnership. But the aspiring mind of the apprentice looked for greater 
and better things." For many months before the expiration of his apprenticeship, he 
had resolved to seek his fortune in the new world ; and knowing the excessive jeal- 
ousy of the government with regard to all attempts to carry away any parts of the 
machinery used in the manufacture of cotton, he resolved to study the machinery so 
thoroughly that he could carry the patterns in his memory. Nor did he let even his 
mother know his destination. Leaving home, therefore, ostensibly for the purpose 
of visiting London, he embarked on board a ship bound to the United States, and 
landed in New York about the middle of November, 1789. 

When Mr. Slater landed on these shores, he found the art of cotton spinning by 
machinery a mystery. Many attempts had been made, but failure attended every ef- 
fort. Hearing of the eftbrts of Moses Brown, of Providence, Rhode Island, in this direc- 
tion, he visited him, and soon entered into an agreement with Mr. Brown and another 
gentleman by the name of Almy, by which he engaged to furnish patterns for the 
machinery and superintend its operation. It is a matter of history that his success 
was perfect, and the " Old Mill" in the town of Pawtucket, near Providence, where 
his first frames were set up, — and where, we believe, they may be still found, — is an 
enduring monument of the ingenuity, forecast, genius, faith, and perseverance of this 
remarkable man. 

From this time the career of Mr. Slater was highly prosperous. He invented and 
applied many improvements to his machinery, and was soon on the high road to 
wealth and fame. He was very exact, as well as diligent in his business, and 
whether officiating as president of a bank, or settling with his numerous employees, 
he never allowed the mistake of a cent to go uncorrected. 

After a few years he removed to the town of Webster, in Massachusetts, where he 
put up very extensive works for the manufacture of cotton cloth, and called the place 
Slatcrsville. Here he died on the 20th of April, 1835, at the age of sixty-seven, 
greatly respected by all who knew him. 




HON. LEWIS E. LINN. 



LEWIS FIELD LINN was born in the immediate vicinity of Louisville, Ken- 
tucky, in the year 1795. His father, when a boy, was taken prisoner by the 
Indians, but escaped by killing his guard and travelling many hundreds of miles 
through a trackless wilderness. He died when the subject of this memoir was but 
eleven years of age. His education was under the care of an elder brother, who 
supplied the place of a father with great fidelity. Having been early intended for 
the medical profession, he blended the study of medicine with his scholastic studies, 
and was thus fitted to commence his medical career very early in life. 

In 1815, before he was twenty, Dr. Linn removed to Missouri, then a territory, 
and commenced the practice of medicine. He rapidly rose to be among the fore- 
most in his profession. A quick, intuitive sagacity gave him a ready insiglit to 
the dispositions, and tempers, and peculiar characteristics of his patients, as well as 
of all his widely-extended acquaintance. To this is to be added a deep and tender 
sympathy with suffering in every shape, and a benevolence as wide and full as the 
opportunity to exercise it. " To all his patients he was the same — Ayi'ig with alac- 
rity to every call, attending upon the poor and humble as zealously as on *he rich 

51 



668 HON. LEWIS F. LINN 

and powerful ; on the stranger as readily as on the neighbor ; discharging all the 
duties of nurse and friend as well as physician, and wholly regardless of his own 
interest, or even his own health, in his zeal to serve and to save others." 

The highest honors and rewards in the profession to which he had devoted himself 
were already within the reach of Dr. Ijinn. Although confined to a very narrow 
sphere of duty, " there is not a capital in Europe or America," remarks a great man 
who was well acquainted with him and well able to judge, " in which he would not 
have attained the front rank in surgery or physic." But he was not permitted to 
pursue his professional career. His fellow-citizens discovered his enlarged fitness for 
a higher walk of duty and usefulness, and called him from his gi-owing honors in his 
profession to the great theatre of political action. 

Dr. Linn was first elected a member of the senate of his adopted state about the 
year 1827-8. Here he served with such aptness and fidelity that he was appointed 
by the executive of the United States to investigate, as their judicial agent, the land 
titles of Missouri. This required a sagacious head and a cool temper. Complicated 
as they were, and conflicting as was the carelessly kept record, it was no easy task to 
bring any thing like order out of the chaos into which he suddenly found himself 
submerged. He succeeded, however, in making the crooked places straight, and to 
render easy and pleasant the duties of all subsequent agents of the government in 
the same business. 

In 1832, he was elected with great unanimity to the senate of the United States, 
and accordingly appeared at Washington city and took his seat at the commencement 
of the next session. He was successively reelected to this high position for a period 
of ten years, when his brilliant career was suddenly cut short by an affection of the 
heart ; and he died in the bosom of his family at his residence at St. Genevieve, Mis- 
souri, on the 2d of May, 1843, in the forty-eighth year of his age. 

The character of Dr. Linn was a rare and beautiful combination of every manly 

and generous trait, and he was greatly beloved by a wide circle of friends. In 1828, 

he married the only daughter of John Rolfe, a distinguished lawyer from Virginia, 

with whom he lived in the most perfect and uninterrupted harmony. Home was the 

centre of his attractions, and he was ever the idol of that home. Conscious of the 

danger of sudden death to which he was constantly exposed, he allowed it to cast no 

gloom over that joyous home. Devoutly reliant on his Father in heaven, he was at 

all times prepared for the event which he had so long foreseen, and when at last it 

came, 

" He meekly bowed his head and died," 

in the sweet assurance that " to die is gain." 




J. H. PLEASANTS. 



JOHN HAMPDEN PLEASANTS was bom in Goochland county, Virginia, 
on the fourth day of January, 1797. His father, the late James Pleasants, filled 
with credit the difterent posts of governor, representative, and senator in the Congress 
of the United States. The son early evinced a keen perception and a strong love 
of intellectual beauty; but, like Patrick Henry, his instinctive love of ease prevented 
his applying himself to any thing like study. He was fond of reading, but read 
indiscriminately every thing that fell into his hand. His love for the classics was 
encouraged and strengthened by his grandfather, who was one of the finest belles- 
lettres scholars in the Old Dominion. This laid a foundation on which his desultory 
knowledge could rest, and from which it could derive nourishment, and which he was 
afterwards able to use to such singular advantage. 

In 1815, Pleasants entered William and Mary's College, and here the effects of 
his careless habits reappeared. He remained but one term in college, and then left, 
and immediately entered the office of the celebrated William Wirt, where he com- 
menced reading law. Mr. Wirt was then at the zenith of his fame. His brilliant 
genius had won for him a dazzling reputation, and the business of his office extended 
through his state and into both the Carolinas. In this office he remained about two 



670 J. II PLEASANTS. 

years, and seems to have devoted them to as severe study as was to have been 
expected from so versatile a mind. 

In 1818, having united himself in the bonds of matrimony with his cousin Miss 
Irvine, he went to Lynchburg and opened an office. But the close drudgery of an 
office was ill suited to his tastes. Besides, he labored under a degree of bashfulness, 
which prevented that fluency of speech so essential to the success of a lawyer. He 
soon found that he was "a sphere unhinged,'' and, turning the key of his office 
door, he left the law and its musty tomes and tasteless drudgery forever behind 
him. When he rose to speak a nightmare seemed to settle upon him, and his 
tongue utterly refused to give utterance to tlie burning thoughts that were continu- 
ally welling up within. But when be took his pen, those thoughts came into 
tangible shape, sparkling with beauty and power. 

Mr. Pleasants, having become entirely disgusted wdth bis profession, turned hia 
thoughts to the paths of editorship, and accordingly purchased an interest in the 
" Lynchburg Press," and became its editor. He had now found his true sphere of 
action, and the brilliant and forcible leaders of that journal soort attracted the prom- 
inent whig politicians of Virginia, of whose party he was, and in whose support he 
had most ardently enlisted. These men urged upon him a removal to a broader 
sphere of action ; and, in consonance with their advice, he removed to Richmond, in 
1823, and issued a prospectus for a new paper, to be called the " Constitutional 
Whig," which made its appearance on the first day of January following. It was 
an exceedingly able partisan paper, and did him great credit; but he soon found 
that something more was needed for the success of a public journal than a ready pen 
and a high order of mind. The " Whig" struggled on with a list that only starved 
its publishers, until he was compelled to give up all his interest in it to satisfy 
the claims of its creditors. 

In 1841, Mr. Pleasants went to Washington city and established the "Inde- 
pendent," in company with Mr. Edward W. .Johnston. But even this combination 
of talent did not save the bantling from death, and, in 1843, he returned to Richmond, 
and assumed the editorial department of the Whig once more. In this department 
he labored with great zea) and effect until the winter of 1846. " We measure the 
force of our language," says a contemporary, "when we say that no country, and no 
age, has ever produced a man better suited, in all the essentials, for the conduct of a 
public journal. To him was given, in an especial manner, that skilful generalization 
which readily seizes upon the strong points of a subject, that happy condensation of 
thought which, as by the dash of a pen, extracts the substance of an argument, and 
that pungent and epigrammatic terseness which addresses itself so powerfully to 
every mind. In pathos and satire he was unrivalled. Happy the statesman who 
won his admiration — luckless the demagogue or charlatan who drew forth his ire." 

Mr. Pleasants fell in a street fight, by the hand of Thomas Ritchie, Jr., on the 
twenty-seventh day of February, 1848, aged fifty-one. 




HON. GEORGE EVANS. 



GEORGE EVANS, one of the profoundest statesmen that Maine has ever pro- 
duced, was born January 12, 1797. After a thorough academical prepara- 
tion, he entered Bowdoin College, in Maine, and was graduated with distinction in 
1815. On leaving college he at once commenced the study of the law ; and after a 
most thorough apprenticeship, he removed to Gardiner, Maine, and opened an office. 
By a studious devotion to his business, he soon rose to eminence and a widely- 
extended practice. He had already begun to be talked of as a suitable person "to be 
clothed upon" with the legal ermine, when his fellow-citizens, discovering his peculiar 
fitness for the business of legislation, elected him to the state legislature. He took 
his seat in the house of representatives in 1825, and was reelected for four successive 
years. In his fourth year he was called upon to preside over the deliberations of the 
house. This was a position in which his rare abilities exhibited themselves to 
advantage, and he commanded the entire approbation of both sides of the house. 

In 1829, Mr. Evans was elected a member of the House of Representatives in the 
Congress of the United States. He at once assumed a high rank as a statesman, and 
entered upon the business in hand with an aptitude that indicated a large experi- 
ence in legislation. 



072 HON. GEORGE EVANS. 

A distinguished member of the house at the time Mr. Evans was elected, and his 
coadjutor for several years, thus speaks of him: — 

"Evans began his career in Congress with General Jackson's first presidential 
t?rm: he came to Washington with a high reputation, so far as that reputation 
could be given to him by the members from Massachusetts and Maine, and with a 
very high anticipation on the part of intimate friends at home, of the standing he 
would acquire and maintain in Congress ; and I do not know the public man who has 
better justified the estimate of partial friends." 

The maiden speech of Mr. Evans made a decided impression in his favor, and 
from that time to the close of his long and arduous service in that house he never 
receded a step in the estimation of his colleagues; and on the occasion of his retire- 
ment from the senate, Mr. Webster takes occasion to speak of him on the floor of 
that branch of Congress in the most flattering terms. " And now, Mr. President," 
said Mr. Webster, "since the honorable member has reminded us that the period of 
his service within these walls is about to expire, I take this occasion, even in the 
Senate, and in his own presence, to say, that his retirement will be a serious loss to 
this government and this country." 

After serving his constituents faithfully and acceptably in the lower house for 
twelve years, Mr. Evans was transferred to the senate of the United States. His 
complete knowledge of financial matters led to his being placed on the finance 
committee, at the head of which he presided during the protracted debate which 
arose on the adjustment of the great tariff question. The duties of this office were 
extremely arduous and delicate, and Mr. Evans fully answered the partial expecta- 
tions of his friends. Mr. Clay had been offered the position of chairman of that 
important committee, but declined the honor and the responsibility. When asked 
why he did not accept, his reply was, " Sir, Mr. Evans knows more about the tariff 
than any other public man in the United States." And a leading political journal 
of that day declared, that " there is probably no man living better acquainted with 
the financial affairs of this country than Mr. Evans." 

But it is not only as a politician and statesman that Mr. Evans occupies an envi- 
able position before the American public. As a patron and friend of education and 
literature, he ranks high in his native state, and has for years been one of the trus- 
tees of Bowdoin College, as also of Waterville. He was likewise a regent of the Smith- 
sonian Institute during the entire period of its organization. The Washington 
College of Pennsylvania conferred on him the degree of doctor of laws. His stand- 
ing among the magnates of his state, as well as of the country, is such as any 
ambitious man may well be proud of, and his fame will go down to posterity as a 
profound legislator, a critical scholar, and a public benefactor. 




DH. ELI TODD. 



ELI TODD, the distinguished and first superintendent of the " Retreat for the 
Insane" at Hartford, Connecticut, was born at New Haven on the 22d of July. 
1769. At the age of five years he lost his father, and was placed the year following 
under the charge of Rev. Dr. Todd, a great-uncle, who resided at East Guilford, in 
the same state. With him he remained until he was ten, when he was placed vmder 
the care and instruction of Rev. Dr. Goodrich, of Durham, Connecticut, with whom 
he pursued his studies until he became fitted to enter college ; and in 1783, when he 
was but fourteen years of age, he was matriculated at Yale college, from which insti- 
tution he was graduated with considerable distinction in 1787. 

Young Todd had already developed those remarkable traits of character which 
ever after endeared him to all who had the privilege of his acquaintance. The of- 
ficers of the college, as well as the students, became much attached to him. 

On leaving Yale he made a voyage to the West Indies, intending to extend his 
travels to Europe and Asia ; but, being visited with the prevailing epidemic of that 
climate, he turned back his face to the land of his birth. On the death of his father 
he inherited a handsome patrimony. This lay in the West Indies, whither his elder 



674 DR.ELITODD. 

brother had accompanied him to look after it. Converting it into cash and valuable 
merchandise, his brother was returning to the United States in a vessel freighted 
with all the family wealth, when he encountered a storm which carried vessel, 
cargo, crew, and passengers to the bottom. 

Being thus reduced to poverty and thrown upon his own resources, young Todd 
resolved to study the profession of medicine, and articled himself with Dr. Ebenezer 
Beardsley, of his native village. Having prepared himself for the practice of his 
profession, he repaired to the beautiful town of Farmington, Connecticut, and com- 
menced business. Here he remained twenty years, rising into an elevated position 
both at home and in the surrounding towns, and being very extensively consulted 
by his brethren in the profession. During this period he married Miss Rhoda Hill, 
a lady of excellent domestic habits and amiable disposition. 

Having been invited to remove to the city of New York, thither Dr. Todd went in 
the winter of 1810 ; but not liking his position he returned to Farmington again, 
where he spent nine years more in a successful practice. In 1819, he removed to the 
city of* Hartford, where he acquired an extensive private practice, and became one of 
the most widely consulting physicians in the whole state. For many years he had 
devoted much study and time to the subject of insanity, and was one of the fore- 
most of those gentlemen who aided in the establishment of the " Retreat for the In- 
sane " in that beautiful city ; and when that institution was ready to go into oper- 
ation he was instinctively indicated to all minds as a suitable person to superintend 
its operations. The committee appointed by the medical society to nominate a prop- 
er candidate for that responsible trust were unanimous in sending in his name to 
the board of directors, who were equally unanimous in making the appointment. It 
was not an office he desired ; and he at length yielded, with extreme reluctance, to 
the solicitations of his friends. The result has proved the sagacity of the appoint- 
ment, and the peculiar fitness he brought to the ofiice has raised the institution to the 
first rank among those public benefactions, " Asylums for the Insane." 

Besides the business of attending to the duties of his office. Dr. Todd found time 
to meet many of his brethren in consultation in all parts of the state. He w^as, also, 
repeatedly elected president of the " Connecticut Medical Society." He was offered 
the superintendence of the " Bloomingdale Asylum," near New York city, as also 
that of the " State Lunatic Asylum " at "Worcester. But he declined them both, 
prefemng to spend his life in his own favorite Retreat. For two or three years before 
his death he became perfectly aware of some organic affection in some vital function.. 
and knew that his mission was drawing to a close. For a few months previous to 
that solemn event he travelled quite extensively, but without receiving any permanent 
benefit ; and on the 17th of November, 1833, he departed this life, aged sixty-four 
years. Thus ended a life of usefulness and eminent piety, in which nothing 

"Became him like the leaving it. He died 
As one that had been studied in his death." 



m 



> 




MARCHIONESS D'OSSOLI, 



BETTER known as Margaret Fuller, a woman of most eccentric genius and 
great mental powers, was the daughter of the late Timothy Fuller, Esq., of 
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was born in that classic village on the 23d of May, 
1810. Discovering early indications of the genius which so distinguished her in 
after life, her father determined to use every means in his power to develop her rare 
gifts; and she was put through a sort of hotbed process of mental cultivation, which 
may partly have been the cause of the singular turn in her mind which appears in all 
her writings. Certainly she was tasked, through the mistaken pride of her doting 
father, far beyond her mental strength, and the penalty was paid in the diminution 
of her bodily vigor and activity. 

Very early in life Miss Fuller was put to the study of the classic languages, for 
which she seemed to have a "wonderful power of acquisition. From these she turned 
to the living tongues, and made such remarkable progi'css that before she reached a 
mature age she was accounted a giant in philological accomplishments. But the " un- 
mellifluous German" had a charm for her which no other tongue possessed, and she 
pored over the works of the German philosophers until her very being became imbued 
wuth their transcendental doctrines. 52 



676 MARCHIONESS D'OS SOL I. 

But not only was Miss Fuller learned in the languages of the present and the 
past ; her mind was also thoroughly stored with solid and useful lore, and she w^as 
taught all the accomplishments which are usually considered necessary to the educa- 
tion of a young lady. She was, undoubtedly, one of the best educated females in 
the country. Her father's death leaving her mother and sisters dependent on their 
own exertions, they opened classes for the instruction of ladies, both married and 
single, in several of the larger towns in New England. 

Miss Fuller began early to use her pen ; and long before the approach of woman- 
hood she was engaged in an extensive correspondence with some of the finest minds 
of the nation. Her first publication, a translation of Goethe's " Conversations," ap- 
peared in 1839. In the following year she was employed by the publishers of the 
" Dial," a quarterly publication which was started as the exponent of the German 
philosophy as received by a certain class of ethical philosophers in our country, at 
whose head appeared Ralph Waldo Emerson, to aid in the editorship of that journal. 

In 1843, Miss Fuller removed to New York, and entered into an arrangement with 
the publishers of the " Tribune," a daily newspaper of a large circulation, to aid in its 
literary department. The same year she published her " Summer on the Lakes," a 
journal of a journey to the west. In 1844, appeared her most important work, 
" Woman in the Nineteenth Century." In 1845, she gave her last published work to 
the press, under the title of " Papers on Literature and Art." Of the merits of these 
various publications it is not our province to speak ; they have been alike subject to 
the highest encomium and the severest criticism. 

In the autumn of 1845, Miss Fuller visited Europe, passing the winter in Rome 
Here she became acquainted with the marquis Giovanni d'Ossoli, whom she married 
in the following summer. She remained in the Eternal City until 1849. The winter 
previous she became the mother of a son ; and in the middle of summer, on the occu- 
pancy of the city by the French troops, she with her husband fled to Florence, not 
deeming it safe to remain in Rome on account of the part they had both taken in the 
Italian revolution. 

In June, 1850, they embarked for the United States in the brig Elizabeth. The 
fate of that richly-freighted brig is v^^ell known. She was wrecked on the rocks off 
Fire Island, not far from New York, on the 8th of August ; and the Ossoli family, 
husband, wife, son, and nurse found a watery gi-ave. 




HON. GEORGE ASHMUN. 



^ EORGE ASHMUN, one of the most popular and effective members of the 
^ whig party in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and who has served his 
country in various public offices, national as well as state, was born on Christmas 
day, 1804, in the town of Blandford, Massachusetts. His childhood and youth were 
passed amidst the influences of a pleasant home, and his education, literary and 
moral, was carefully watched over by those to whom heaven had delegated this high 
purpose. As evidence of this we find him prepared to enter college at the tender 
age of fifteen, and he accordingly became a member of the freshman class of Yale 
College in 1819. His course in college was such as the hopes of his childhood had 
predicated, and he was graduated with honor in 1823. 

On leaving college, Mr. Ashmun had not long to debate the question of his future 
choice, for having, as he says, " an hereditary tendency to the law profession," he at 
once set to work to prepare himself for the honorable and successful discharge of its 
litigious duties. So, having passed through the approved course of law reading, he 
opened an office in the beautiful village of Springfield, Massachusetts, in the year 



678 HON. GEORGE A SHMUN. 

1828. Here he soon rose to distinction in his i)rofes5ion, and entered upon a wide 
field of practice in the various courts of his native state. 

But Mr. Ashmun was not satisfied with being a mere lawyer, however thorough 
might be his legal lore, or successful in its application to the cases which came into 
his hand. He had a strong taste for pure and classical literature, and richly stored 
his mind with the treasures which its exhaustless mines afforded. National law, and 
the science and politics of government, especially that pertaining to his own country, 
largely occupied his mind, and the aspects of his political creed soon became mani- 
fest in his joining the whig party in his state. 

In 1833, Mr. Ashmun was elected to represent the citizens of Springfield in the 
" Massachusetts House of Representatives." He was reelected in 1835, as also in 
1836, to the same seat, during which time he was placed upon several important 
committees, and gave the most entire satisfaction to his constituents. In 1838, as 
also in 1839, he was sent to the upper house of " The Great and General Court," 
where his high character as a man, and his thorough qualifications for the position he 
occupied, won for him the highest respect of the whole community. In 1841, he 
was once more returned to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and was by 
that body chosen to preside over its deliberations. 

After a few brief years of private life devoted to the business of his profession, he 
was called to higher duties, and was elected a member of the " House of Represen- 
tatives in Congress." He took his seat in that body in December, 1845, and was 
twice reelected to the same. In 1851, declining further political preferments, he 
retired to the bosom of his family, where he has since remained ; and although he 
has declared himself more than satisfied with his share of public life and public 
honors, being yet only in the early prime of life, his country will yet doubtless call for 
his services in a way which he cannot gracefully decline. 

As a public man there are fev^^ whose sails have been so filled with the breath of 
popular favor, and the career of Mr. Ashmun has done him honor as a lawyer, states- 
man, scholar, and a man. One who knows him well writes, " As a lawyer and 
political statesman, having a mind to comprehend profound questions and to effect 
contemplated results, Mr. Ashmun has not his superior in all New England. Quick- 
ness to perceive, readiness to plan, and boldness to execute, are the striking charac- 
teristics of his mind." 




REV. ALBERT BARNES, D. D. 



ALBERT BARNES, one of the most distinguished ministers in the Presby- 
terian denomination, as well as one of the soundest and most prolific theologi- 
cal writers in the body, was born at Rome, New York, on the 1st of December, 1798. 
His father was a respectable tanner, and young Albert was intended by him for 
his successor, and he accordingly labored with him in the tannery until he was seven- 
teen years of age. Not liking his business, he resolved upon acquiring an education 
and adopting the profession of the law. For this purpose he commenced studying 
by himself, and in 1817, repaired io Fairfield, Connecticut, and entered the academy 
at that place. Here he remained three years, teaching a district school through the 
winter vacations for his support. When he entered this school his mind was in a 
very unsettled condition on the subject of Christian truth. He had read and thought 
much of certain sceptical writings, and he had begun seriously to doubt the truth of 
revealed religion. But while here his feelings underwent a gi-eat change. 

In 1819, Mr. Barnes became a member of the senior class of Hamilton college, 
and was graduated in the following year, showing that he had made a faithful use 
of his academical means while at Fairfield. While in college he became the subject 



680 REV. ALBERT BARNES, D. D. 

of a revival of religion which prevailed in the institution, and on his rctnrn home he 
became a member of the Presbyterian church in his native village. 

His thoughts being now turned decidedly towards the subject of theology, Mr. 
Barnes determined to fit himself for the ministry, and accordingly entered the theo- 
logical school at Princeton, New Jersey, being furnished with the means of com- 
pleting his course by a religious friend. Here he became a severe student, and made 
the acquisition of theological knowledge the great aim and pursuit of his life. His 
whole com-se in the school was also marked by a life of great purity and practical 
efforts to spread the knowledge of religion among the people in the neighborhood. 

On leaving the school, where he remained through the whole course of four years, 
Mr. Barnes received from the New Brunswick presbytery a license to preach. He 
immediately commenced preaching, and occupied the pulpits of several vacant con- 
gregations in New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Among others he sup- 
plied the vacant desk of the first Presbyterian society in Morristown, New Jersey, to 
the permanent occupancy of which he received an invitation. He accepted it, and 
on the 25th of February, 1825, he received ordination at the hands of the presbytery 
of Elizabethtown. 

Mr. Barnes remained with this parish five years, during which his ministry was 
very prosperous and harmonious, at the end of which time he received an urgent 
call from the first Presbyterian church and society in the city of Philadelphia. This 
position oftering him a much wider sphere of influence, he felt constrained to accept 
it, and was accordingly installed in June, 1830. Here a new sphere called for re- 
newed exertions ; and he had not long been settled when he found himself in oppo- 
sition to all the other churches, as well as the presbytery and synod of Philadeljjhia, 
on certain theological dogmas which he deemed obsolete. After many persecutions 
he was summoned before these grave bodies and condemned as holding heretical 
opinions. He appealed from these decisions to the general assembly, which set aside 
the verdict of the presbytery and synod of Philadelphia, and reinstated him in the 
full fellowship of the churches. 

From that time Dr. Barnes has discharged his duties as pastor with great accept- 
ance, and has become one of the foremost divines in that body of Christians. He 
has devoted himself extensively to the subject of biblical literature and criticism, and 
has laboriously employed his pen in that department of theological learning. His 
commentaries on the New Testament, extending to eleven volumes duodecimo, and 
his criticisms on Job, Isaiah, and Daniel, are too well known to require any comment. 
Besides these he has written on various subjects connected with the great theme to 
which he has devoted his life. 

These severe literary pursuits have considerably injured his health and rendered 
him partially blind. In 1851, he made a voyage to Europe and travelled quite ex- 
tensively, and returned to this country much benefite 1. 




MAJOR GENERAL E. P. GAINES. 



EDMUND PENDLETON GAINES was bom in Culpepper county, Virginia, 
on the 20th of March, 1777. His father was a soldier of the revolution, and 
during the war moved into North Carolina, but at its close returned once more to 
Culpepper county, with his health rsduced, and ruined in his property through the 
depreciation of the continental issue of paper money. After residing here for a few 
years he removed to Sullivan county, afterwards the eastern part of Tennessee. This 
portion of the state was then infested by the Cherokee Indians, who were very hos- 
tile to the whites, and kept the border families in a constant state of terror and alarm. 
Young Gaines was now about fifteen years of age. He had heard of the cruel 
assaults of the savage foe, and longed to be led to their attack in the deep fastnesses 
where they dwelt. He became expert in the use of the rifle, and studied as much of 
military tactics as he could find time for between the laborious duties of assisting his 
father in the cultivation of the farm. A rifle company being raised in his neighbor- 
hood, he was elected lieutenant at the age of eighteen ; and in January, 1799, he was 
appointed ensign in the sixth regiment of infantry of the United States army. His 
regiment being disbanded in 1800, he was transferred to the fourth regiment, com 
raanded by colonel Butter. 



(382 MAJOR GENERAL E . P . GAINES. 

In 1801, lieutenant Gaines was selected by the government to command a com- 
pany of topographical engineers, for the survey of a military road from Nashville, 
Tennessee, to Natchez, on the Mississippi, as also to the survey of certain Indian 
boundaries in that neighborhood. In this service he was engaged until 1804, 
when he was appointed military collector for the district of Mobile. He was also 
appointed postmaster and agent to the postmaster general. His business in this last- 
mentioned department was to examine and report any and all postmasters who were 
suspected to be engaged in any way in the Burr conspiracy. Here he served five 
years, meanwhile having been promoted to the rank of captain, when he retired from 
the army and commenced practising law in the territory of Mississippi. 

On the declaration of war in 1812, captain Gaines hastened to ofl'er his services 
once more to his country. Raised to the rank of colonel, he was ordered to the 
northern frontier. Here his superior discipline and knowledge of military tactics 
began early to be seen. After the battle of Chrystler's Fields, in which he took a 
prominent part, he fell sick, and was prevented sharing the fruits of victory in the 
campaign of Harrison and its glorious termination at the river Thames. 

Early in August, 1814, colonel Gaines was promoted to the rank of brigadier gen- 
eral, and ordered to Fort Erie to assume the command of the army of the north. 
He was immediately engaged in sharp conflict with the enemy ; and from the fifth 
of this month until the last of July, almost every day w^as witness to a dread encoun- 
ter of various portions of the belligerent armies, in which victory generally and ul- 
timately perched on the standard of the stars and stripes. On the 28th of August, 
as he was completing his long report to the secretary of war, sitting at his camp table, 
a bombshell intruded itself into his camp and unceremoniously exploded, wounding 
him severely, shattering his table and the camp stool on which he was sitting, and 
destroying nearly all the documents he had so laboriously prepared. He made his 
report nevertheless; and congress, deeply sensible of the service he had rendered his 
country, voted him their thanks i.uid a gold medal. He received also an elegant 
sword from each of the following states, viz.. New York, Virginia, and Tennessee. 
Besides which many other testimonials from various parts of the Union were ten- 
dered him. 

General Gaines was with Jackson in the Creek war, and afterwards commanded 
in the southern military district until the reduction of the army in 1821, when he was 
retained as a brigadier, and the western division assigned him. He was a candidate 
for the rank of major general in 1828 ; but Mr. Adams decided that general Macomb's 
claim was stronger. General Gaines was the senior officer during the Sauk (Indian) 
disturbance in 1831-33, and was for a time engaged in the Seminole war cf 1836. 
He was soon after transferred to the eastern division, with his head quarters at New 
York, and only returned to the south just before his death, which occurred in the 
spring of 1849, in the seventy-third year of his age. He was a man of extreme sim- 
plicity of character and of unquestioned integrity. 




SAMUEL APPLETON. 



SAMUEL APPLETON, one of the merchant princes of Boston, who for many 
years commanded the respect of all the citizens of that busy city, and whose 
charities, by thousands and tens of thousands, have fallen like refreshing rain on 
many a blighted heart, was born in New Ipswich, New Hampshire, on the 22d of 
June, 1766. He was the third child in a family of thirteen, and the son of deacon 
Isaac Appleton, a respectable farmer. His early education was acquired in the " Dis- 
trict School as it Was," to which, after he was old enough to be of any assistance on 
the farm, he was sent only in the winter terms. At sixteen, having " completed his 
education," he left going to school, and gave his whole time to the duties of the farm. 
Mr. Appleton remained under the parental roof until he was twenty-two years of 
age, when he became one of a party of young men who intended settling a township 
in the wilderness of Maine. Two years of anxious labor and much suffering cured 
his desire to colonize, and satisfied him that he could find employment more con- 
genial to his tastes and more productive of the means of living; and so he decided 
on becoming a merchant. His remarkable success in this his chosen vocation shows 
that he did not mistake his path or miscalculate his own fitness for the business of 
traffic. 53 



684 



SAMUEL APPLETON. 



After trying the business in the country, first at Ashburnham and then at New 
[pswich, ^ir. Appleton removed to Boston at the age of twenty-eight, in the year 
1794, and established himself as a city merchant. He soon acquu-ed a large busi- 
ness ; and from this time to the day of his death one uninterrupted stream of pros- 
perity poured its treasures into his coffers. He began business on the principle that 
a straightforward, open, and honest course was the best — nay, the only one — for a 
young man to pursue who had his fortune to carve out of the asperities of trade ; and 
he never forsook it. No man ever lived a life of trade in a more honorable and up- 
right manner. He never used a deception to gain a bargain, and his detestation of 
the man who did was deep and sincere. His confidence in men was almost un- 
limited. Having no designs on others, he had no suspicion of the intention of others 
to injure him. Generous, charitable, gentle, and kind, he held these to be the general 
traits of society. His pastor, Rev. Mr. Peabody, of the King's Chapel, once said to 
him, " Mr. Appleton, you have been long engaged in business, under a great variety 
of circumstances and in different countries : what is your opinion in regard to the 
honesty of mankind ? " " Very favorable," he replied. " Very generally I think 
they mean to be honest. I have never in my life met with more than three or four 
cases in which I thought a man intended to be dishonest in dealing with me." 

In 1819, Mr. Appleton was married to Mrs. Mary Gore, a woman who was ready 
to second every good work of his hand, and who made his home a constant oasis of 
pleasure, and a place where his friends were ever glad to resort. She was consulted 
by him in all his works of charity, and a regular portion of every day was devoted by 
them in considering the subjects of their alms. As early as 1823, feeling that his 
wealth was sufficient, he resolved that his fortune should no longer be increased, and 
he devoted nearly his whole income to charity. Reserving a fair amount to support 
the expenses of his household and to gratify his taste for travel, he consecrated the 
balance sacredly to the purpose of making glad the heart of the widow and the 
fatherless and aiding the destitute portions of his Master's vineyard. Thus his 
charities amounted, in the last years of his life, to tens of thousands annually. The 
poor were sought out and relieved, and none ever left his door empty-handed who 
could show that they really required assistance. 

As a mark of the nice sense of justice always cherished by Mr. Appleton, as well 
as illustrative of his real benevolence, we will give the following anecdote, which we 
find in a handsome tribute to his memory in the " Genealogical Register" for Jan- 
uary, 1854 ; it is from the pen of his pastor. « A favorite nephew to whom he had 
bequeathed in his will a large proportional amount of his estate died before him, and 
by the terms of the will a half-sister, between whom and Mr. Appleton there was no 
blood relationship, became entitled to these bequests. The executor called Mr. Ap- 
pleton's attention to the fact, thinking that he might wish to make some change m 
the disposition of his property. After taking the subject into full consideration, his 
reply was, ' If, in the other world, there is any knowledge of what is done in this, 1 
should not like to have my nephew, whom I so loved and trusted, find that my first 
act, on learning his death, is the revocation or curtailment of a bequest made m his 
favor, and which, if he had survived me, would have eventually benefited her who 
was nearest and dearest to him. The will must stand as it is.' " 

Mr. Appleton's death occurred on the 12th of July, 1853, in the eighty-eighth yeai 
of Jiis age. 




GENERAL JAMES MILLER. 



JAMES MILLER was born in Peterboro', New Hampshire, in 1775. His early 
years were passed on his father's farm and in attending the village schools in the 
winter. It is said of him that he was a lazy boy, shunning all the work he could and 
neglecting his books. But as he reached maturer years he felt the necessity of both 
studying and working, and at the age of eighteen he left home and went to Amherst, 
New Hampshire, where for the next six or eight years he attended the academy in 
that town, teaching school in the winter vacations to enable him to pay his way. He 
then went to Williams college, where he spent a year, and then entered the office of 
James Wilson, then residing at Peterboro', but afterwards a distinguished lawyer in 
the village of Keene, New Hampshire. Having served out the proper time of a 
clerkship, he opened an office in the adjoining town of Greenfield in 18C3. 

Here Mr. Miller devoted his time between the duties of his office and the training 
of a company of artillery, of which he was the commander. In 1808, congress passed 
the act for the increase of the army of the United States, and Mr. Jefferson conferred 
on him the appointment of major in the " Fourth Regiment of United States Infant- 
ry '' He joined his regiment, then stationed at fort Independence, in Boston harbor, 



686 GENERAL JAMES MILLER 

early in the spring of 1809. He remained here until the spring of 1811, when he 
embarked for Philadelphia; from whence he proceeded to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, to 
join the 50th regiment of infantry, having just before been promoted to the rank of 
lieutenant colonel in that regiment, colonel Ford being commander. 

From this point lieutenant colonel Miller descended the Ohio to the Wabash, and 
up that river to the " Tippecanoe Ground," where, from severe duty and great ex- 
posure on the route, he fell sick, and was not permitted to take a part in the success- 
ful battle which soon after ensued. It was his first experience in sickness, and he 
was but poorly able to meet it. General Harrison and all the other officers show^ed 
him every kindness ; but it sorely troubled his brave spirit that he could not take part 
in the battle. 

In May, 1812, colonel Miller was ordered to Dayton, Ohio, with the fourth regi- 
ment ; from whence he marched to Detroit, having joined general Hull at Urbana. 
Here he met a large body of the Indians and English, and after a severe conflict 
routed them, in which victory perched upon his banner : he destroyed their works. 
He took a conspicuous part on all those bloody battle fields which bordered our 
Canadian frontier — Niagara, Erie, Chippewa, Lundy's Lane, etc. It was while en- 
gaged in this last-named conflict that his general asked him if he could dislodge a 
body of the enemy who were strongly posted on a neighboring eminence, and whose 
deadly fire was committing bloody execution in the ranks of our army. " I'll try, 
SIR," was his calm and heroic reply, and which has rendered immortal the name of 
Miller. For his brave conduct during that campaign he was voted a gold medal by 
congress, and promoted to the rank of brigadier general. 

General Miller served throughout the w^ar with great bravery, and at its close was 
appointed governor of Arkansas. After serving in this station for a few years he re- 
ceived the appointment of collector for the port of Salem and Beverly, where he re- 
mained until 1849. Here his affable bearing and the brave part he had borne in so 
many battles of his country won him many friends, and he passed his years very 
pleasantly in the bosom of his family. 

In 1849, general Miller resigned his office and retired to his estate in New Hamp- 
shire, where he spent the brief remnant of his eventful career amidst the scenes and 
friends of his early life, respected and beloved by all. He died at Temple, in his na- 
tive s^ate, on the 7th of July, 1851, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. 

General Miller had a most commanding aspect. Considerably above six feet in 
height, and finely proportioned, he seemed born to lead the armies of his country to 
successful conflicts. His piercing eye and majestic brow were the very emblems of 
authority, but, when relaxed by his genial smiles, lost all their severity, and became 
a benediction. 




EDWARD EVERETT. 



EDWARD EVERETT was bom in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in April, 1794 
He was prepared for college in the celebrated schools of the city of Boston, 
and entered Harvard College at the age of thirteen, and graduating at seventeen 
with the highest honors of his class. Having studied divinity, he was ordained as 
pastor of the Brattle Square church and society, in Boston, where he officiated for 
a few years with great popularity. It was while in this pulpit that he acquired that 
habit of memoriter speaking for which he is still so remarkable, not having been 
known in a single instance to consult his notes in a quarter of a century, although 
he never speaks without having them in his pocket. 

In 1814, having accepted an appointment to the Greek professorship in Harvard 
College, he travelled extensively in Europe, visiting all the most famous schools in 
England and the continent, and making the acquaintance of nearly all the learned 
savans of the old world. Among other places, he visited, and remained some time 
in, Greece, and, after four or five years of diligent preparation abroad, he returned 
to Cambridge, and entered at once upon the duties of his new post, bidding theology 
a long farewell. The duties of his office were discharged with an ability which had 
at once its effect upon the college, and won for him the reputation of being the first 



QQQ EDWARD EVERETT. 

Greek scholar of his age. About this time he became the editor of the North 
American Review, and infused into its dying pages a new life, greatly increasing its 
circulation, and elevating its literary tone and character. 

In 1824, Mr. Everett delivered the annual oration before the Phi Beta Kappa So- 
ciety of Harvard. On this occasion. La Fayette was present. The popularity of 
the orator, and the extraordinary character of the occasion, drew a large and brilliant 
house ; and when, at the close of the oration, he addressed the veteran friend of 
Washington, in those deep, thrilling, and pathetic tones for which no man is more 
remarkable, he was interrupted by one of those sudden outbursts of feeling so seldom 
occurring, and the whole audience, rising to their feet, in tears of graMtude gave the 
old hero such a welcome shout as none but patriot hearts ever feel, and patriot lips 
express. This was the commencement of a series of brilliant public addresses which 
he was called on to deliver before various literary and political organizations. 

In 1825, Mr. Everett was sent to Congress by his constituency in Middlesex, and 
occupied his seat in that body for ten successive years, with gi-eat credit to himself 
and satisfaction to his constituents. While in Congress, he was a pattern member 
in diligence and attention to the business in hand, shrinking from none of the drudg- 
ery of legislation, and never manifesting impatience with the vexatious minutisB of 
business. 

On retiring from Congress, Mr. Everett was unanimously chosen governor of his 
native state, which office he filled for four successive years, and only failed of his 
election for the fifth by one vote, and that occasioned by some local question not at 
all affecting his popularity with the public. 

In 1841, he was appointed minister to the court of St. James. For this position 
he was preeminently qualified, by his scholarship and thorough acquaintance with 
all languages and the political history of the world. His manly bearing before the 
British ministry, his firmness and decision, no less than the amiableness of his ad- 
dress, won the regards and confidence of all with whom he came in contact ; while 
the universities of Oxford and Cambridge conferred upon him, as a mark of their 
respect for his learning, the highest titles in their bestowal. 

On his return to America, he was elected to the presidency of Harvard College, 
which office he resigned, after four years' service, in 1849, on account of feeble 
health. Once more he was sent to Congress, and held his seat until he was called 
to resign it, in order to assume the duties of the office of secretary of state, during 
the last year, made vacant by the death of that eminent statesman, Daniel Webster. 
On the accession of General Pierce to the United States presidency, he was sent to 
the Senate of the United States for six years from 1852. 

No living statesman has a larger claim on the respect of the nation than Mr. 
Everett. Without a stain on his reputation, or a " kink of inconsistency" in his 
political course, he is respected by men of every political clique, and his friendship 
is sought by scholars of high and low degree. 




MRS. SARAH J. HALE. 



SARAH J. BUELL was born in Newport, New Hampshire — a wild and beau- 
tifui village among the hills of the Granite State. Of her early life we will lei 
her give her own account, which she does in a modest and concise manner altogether 
pleasing to the reader. " I was mainly educated by my mother, and strictly taught 
to make the Bible the rule of my life. The books to which I had access were few, 
very few, in comparison with the number given to children nowadays; but they 
were such as required to be studied — and I did study them. Next to the Bible and 
* Pilgrim's Progress,' my earliest reading was Milton, Addison, Pope, Johnson, Cow- 
per. Burns, and a portion of Shakspeare. I did not obtain all his works until I was 
nearly fifteen. The first regular novel I read was the ' Mysteries of Udolpho,' when 
I was quite a child." This book, which fired her childish imagination, was written 
by ii woman, and it awakened an ardent desire in her breast to become an authoress 
herself. 

While yet young, Miss Buell was married to David Hale, a lawyer of some note 
in her native village, with whom she lived in great harmony for several years, when 
he died, " leaving her the sole protector of five infant children, the eldest but seven 
years of age." It was now, while oppressed with the weight of her new responsi- 



690 



MRS. SARAH J. HALE. 



bilities, that she determined to bring her literary qualifications to aid her in the sup- 
port of her young brood. Excepting a small volume of fugitive poetry, published 
by the friends of her late husband, the first work she sent forth to the world was 
" Northwood," a novel, in two volumes, which was issued in 1827. This book es- 
tablished her reputation as an authoress ; and in 1828, the publishers of " The La- 
dies' Magazine " invited her to take charge of the editorial department of that 
magazine, the only one of the kind, at that time, devoted exclusively to the female 
sex in this country. 

In the acceptance of this invitation she was actuated by a double desire — to 
superintend the education of her two boys, and to obtain the means of defraying 
the expenses to be incurred in the same. She removed accordingly to the city of 
Boston, in the autumn of 1828, and took charge of the editorial department of the 
" Magazine," the duties of which she continued to discharge for nine successive 
years, during which time it continued to increase in popular favor, and, what is better, 
its own circulation. 

During the residence of Mrs. Hale in Boston, she enjoyed access to the best so- 
ciety of the city, in which her intelligence and literary acquisitions fitted her to be- 
come an honorable member, while her reputation abroad as a writer was constantly 
increasing through the columns of her widely-circulated journal, and several volumes 
of light literature, which, from time to time, she gave to the world. 

After a thorough preparation in the unequalled schools of the city in which she 
resided, she had the satisfaction to witness the happy matriculation of her sons at 
Harvard College, Cambridge, from which they were subsequently graduated in 
course with honor. 

In 1837, the Ladies' Magazine was united to the Lady's Book, published by 
Godey, in Philadelphia ; and in 1841, Mrs. Hale removed to that city, where she has 
since resided. For nearly a quarter of a century she has wielded the editorial pen ; 
a longer time, probably, than any other woman ever filled the same capacity. She 
still edits the double magazine which sends its monthly swarms of fireflies through- 
out the land to enlighten and cheer the hearts of her ten thousand readers. Besides 
her labors as an editor, she has written a large number of books ; among which are 
the following : " Northwood ; " " Sketches of American Character ; " " Traits of 
American Life ; " "Flora's Interpreter;" " The Ladies' Wreath," (a selection from 
the female poets of England and America ;) " The Way to live Well, and to be 
Well while we Live ; " " Grosvenor, a Tragedy ; " " Alice Ray, a Romance in 
Rhyme;" "Harry Guy, the Widow's Son, a Story of the Sea;" "Three Hours; 
or the Vigil of Love, and other Poems ; " "A Complete Dictionary of Poetical 
Quotations, containing Selections from the writings of the Poets of England and 
America," large 8vo., 600 . pp. ; and " Woman's Record," her last, best work, ol 
nearly 900 pages, royal octavo. 

Not be forgotten in the enumeration of her literary labors is the editing of several 
annuals, and the preparation of several school and other books for the young. 




REV. H. W. BEECHER. 

IN these days of supple necks, and cringing knees, and fawning voices, it is really 
refreshing to meet a man who has within his manly bosom a manly soul ; who 
dares and will unmask sin though it expose the sanctuary ; whose sympathies are aU 
with the oppressed and down-trodden, and all whose enmities are against the op- 
pressor and the sinner; it is peculiarly gratifying, as a sign of the times, to find such 
a man in the pulpit, where so little life is seen and so little power is felt. 

Such a man is Henry Ward Beecher, worthy son of a worthy sire, who for the 
honest and fearless manner in which he exposes the sins of those in high and low 
places, in the church and out of it alike, stands unrivalled among his brethren. He 
was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1813. His father was the lion-hearted Lyman 
Beecher, D. D., who has blessed his country and the church with a family of men. 
Five of these sons have followed in the footsteps of their noble father, and become 
promulgators of the living word of God; and four of whom are still engaged in the 
service of their divine Master — one having gone to his reward. 

Henry partakes of all the strong traits of his excellent father, with which are admi- 
rablv blended the delicate tenderness and exquisite sensibility of his mother, who 
^ 54 



gg2 REV.H.W.BEECHER. 

was also a woman of great strength of intellect, with a bosom overflowing with all 
the kindly emotions of the human heart. Under her sagacious and watchful train- 
ing he grew up, daily developing those traits of character which attracted the attention 
of all who knew him. It is to her maternal care that he owes the well-balanced char- 
acter which he so eminently possesses. True, he studied the rudiments of knowledge 
in the schools of his native hills, and afterwards in the best schools of the city of 
Boston ; but every plant was dressed and trained by her careful hand, and to this 
home culture does he owe it, under Heaven, that the soil of his young heart vegetated 
but few noxious weeds. 

With a sound mind in a healthy body, Mr. Beecher became a member of Amherst 
College in 1830. He was not remarkable for his scholarship while in college, but he 
read both men and books to great advantage, and by his careful mode of living and 
active exercise in the open air, he kept up the healthy action of his system, and came 
forth from his Alma Mater as robust as he went in. On leaving college he went to 
study theology in the " Lane Seminary," in Cincinnati, Ohio. Here he passed three 
years, pursuing a wide range of reading, both professional and non-professional. 
He studied the various systems of physiology in vogue, particularly those by Gall 
and Spurzheim, with great care, as also the mental philosophy of the schools. On 
leaving the school, he gave evidence that his course of study, selected by himself, had 
produced its effect ; for rarely does any theological school give birth to so mature a 
mind. 

After preaching a few months, he accepted an invitation to the pastorate of the 
Independent Presbyterian church in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and was ordained in 
June, 1837. After laboring two years in this connection, he was called by a church 
in Indianapolis, the capital of the state, to assume its spiritual oversight, and was 
installed accordingly in October, 1839. Here he labored with much success for sev- 
eral years, when he felt compelled to resign his charge on account of the failing 
health of his wife, and by the advice of her physician, to seek a more eastern climate. 
While in Indianapolis, he rendered eminent service in establishing and building up 
the " Wabash College," situated at Crawfordville, and to the support of which his 
present people, shortly after his settlement among them, contributed the sum of 
^10.000. While here, he preached and published his " Lectures to Young Men," 
a work that has gone through many editions, and done incalculable good. 

In the fall of 1847, Mr. Beecher was invited to take charge of the Plymouth 
church, in Brooklyn, New York, where he has since labored, and labors still, with 
most signal success. His congregation is one of the largest in the United States, 
and is composed mainly of the middle classes of society. It is noted for its active 
charities in all the great reforms which mark the age. His preaching is eminently 
practical, and " Thou art the man " rings in many a conscience-stricken soul as he 
applies the glittering knife of dissection to the subjects of his congregation. He 
rarely writes out a sermon ; selecting his subject early in the week, he studies it 
wherever he may chance to be; now in his study, then in the newspapers, anon in 
the streets and on change, but oftener at the homes of his parishioners, and the 
haunts of sorrow and of sin, where, like his divine Master, he may be often seen ; 
and then, with his subject fresh and warm in his heart, he pours out his message 
in.o the hearts of his hearers. Hence his wonderful success. 




HON. JOEL R. POINSETT. 



JOEL R. POINSETT was born in Statesburg, South Carolina, in 1779. In 
his early life his health was exceedingly delicate, and while he was yet in his 
nonage he became the only survivor of a numerous family. On account of ill health, 
his early education was somewhat deficient ; and while yet a youth he went abroad 
to seek the restoration of his health, and to get his education in foreign schools. 
The first four years of his sojourn were passed in England and France ; after which 
he travelled extensively over the eastern continent, and penetrated deeply into the in- 
terior of Asia. 

On his return to America, his health yet being feeble, he went to South America, 
the West Indies, and Mexico. Here he spent a number of years, studying the po- 
litical condition of the people ; and having partially recovered his health, he came 
once more to his native state, and entered into the politics of his own country. In 
1821, he was elected to Congress, and took his seat in the House of Representatives 
in the winter of the same year. At the period we write of, a good deal of enthusi- 
astic chivalry was manifested in that body for the unfortunate Greeks, as well as 
for republicans of the Spanish American States, who were struggling for civil lib- 
erty. Clay, Webster, and other eminent men espoused their cause, and stirred the 



g94 HON. JOEL R. POINSETT 

heart of the country by their appeals on the behalf of those who were striving to break 
the chain of the oppressor that they might go free. Mr. Poinsett immediately took 
up a lance in their behalf, and nobly seconded the efforts of his elder brethren in the 
cause of " Universal Freedom.'''' Alas! their manly and Christian efforts did not 
meet with the success they deserved. Greece only bled and wore her chains, while 
the Spanish Americans became distracted in their councils, and weakened daily 
in their means of acquiring freedom, until they fell an easy prey to the very people 
who had expended such an amount of vehement enthusiasm in their behalf. 

Mr. Poinsett belonged to, and acted with, the democratic party in most of its great 
measures ; but he would never sacrifice a principle to his party. He was a man 
whom no power could terrify, and no bribes corrupt. When he had served in Con- 
gress four years, President Adams, although differing from him in his political creed, 
appointed him, in 1825, minister to Mexico. This post was an exceedingly difficult 
and onerous one, and he discharged its duties with great discretion and ability. 

On the return of Mr. Poinsett from his Mexican mission, he found the United 
States shaken to its centre with nullification, his native state taking the van in the 
work of disunion. He at once took " the Union, one and indissoluble, now and for- 
ever," for his motto, and nobly battled for its security and glory. Shoulder to 
shoulder with Jackson and Webster — names which will endure while the ark of 
American liberty shall float on the sea of life, and burn and shine with an imperish- 
able glory until the earth shall fly from its everlasting foundations — he labored with 
true patriotism for the glory of his country and her holy institutions, and strove to 
save the escutcheon of his own beloved state from the defilement of nullification 
and secession. 

In 1837, when Mr. Van Buren assumed the robes of the presidential office, he 
called Mr. Poinsett to his cabinet, and placed under his supervision the department 
of war. 

At the close of Mr. Van Buren's term of office, Mr. Poinsett retired into private 
life, declining all further public participation in the government. But he did not 
lose his interest in the affairs of his country or the state he lived in. In every im- 
portant movement his voice or his pen was enlisted. His writings exhibit enlarged 
and comprehensive views of the intention and purposes of government. He was 
no selfish and "localized" politician, but with a heart embracing the north and the 
south, the east and the west, he desired " prosperity and protection to each, pros- 
perity and protection to all." He strongly and consistently opposed the Mexican 
war, although declared and prosecuted by his own party. Thus, with a noble and 
high-souled patriotism, he lived, and thus he died. He expired on the spot which 
gave him birth, on the 14th of December, 1851, aged seventy-two years. 




STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER. 

STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER, widely known as the patroon of Albany, 
_ was born in the city of New York, on the 1st of November, 1764. When the 
"Dutch West India Company" was formed, in 1621, his paternal ancestor was a 
member of the company, and early came to New Amsterdam, with a grant from the 
company of immense tracts of land in various parts of the state, one embracing the 
territory now occupied by the city of Albany. This immense property, then of lit- 
tle nominal value, fell, by regular descent, into the hands of the subject of this notice, 
after it had acquired a value almost inconceivable, making him the wealthiest man 
in the nation. His early life was, consequently, favored with all the appliances of 
education, and after a successful preparatory study he commenced his collegiate 
course at New Jersey College, and completed it at Harvard University, receiving his 
bachelor's degree in 1782, just at the close of the revolutionary war. 

This was a period of great excitement and sharp discussion. The war of the 
revolution had been successfully concluded, and the independence of our country 
secured, but the government had to be reorganized, a constitution to be adopted, and 
rulers to be chosen. The discussions which resulted from this state of things were 
long and earnest. In these Mr. Van Rensselaer took a deep interest and an earnest 



696 STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER 

part. Attaching himself to the party of Washington, Hamilton, Jay, etc., lie entered 
into the political arena with full heart, never shrinking from the responsibility of his 
position. He was repeatedly elected to the State Assembly, as well as to the Sen- 
ate, and for six years, from 1795, he filled the office of lieutenant governor, in con- 
nection with Jay as governor. 

In the early commencement of the present century the federalists lost their as- 
cendency in the State of New York, and Mr. Van Rensselaer, of course, figured no 
longer in the state councils ; but in his native county, such was his popularity that 
he was called to fill several offices of trust and power. 

On the renewal of our difficulties with Great Britain, in 1812, Mr. Van Rensse- 
laer was put in command of the New York division of militia, and sent to defend 
our northern frontier. His energy and tact were speedily manifest in the improve- 
ment of the army, and the subsequent success of our arms in that quarter. The 
battle of Queenstown was fought by a portion of the forces under his command. 
The victory was claimed by the English, whose soldiers remained on the field, but 
the result of that bloody fight was decidedly in favor of the American arms. 

After the war, Mr. Van Rensselaer was elected to Congress, and served several 
sessions. In the twentieth Congress he took a quite conspicuous part, and, by his 
casting vote in the delegation from New York, secured the election to the pr^^si- 
dency of the United States of John Qviincy Adams. With the close of this ^ ti- 
gress ended his public labors, and he retired altogether from the political arena. 

But if Mr. Van Rensselaer figured no longer as a politician and statesman, he 
entered at once into a higher and worthier field of action. Fortunately for the 
world, the rare combination was found in him of exhaustless wealth and a corre- 
sponding benevolence. But his was no indiscriminating distribution of his money 
and his patronage. He, like his Master, "went about doing good." He sought out 
the worthy poor and relieved their sufferings, and wherever he detected humble 
genius he fostered and strengthened it. Many a lad of brilliant gifts, who, but for 
his kindness, would have labored through life in a smithy or factory, has been en- 
abled to secure an education which has fitted him for the highest stations in the 
various professions. Among other benefactions, the "Rensselaer School," instituted 
in 1824, for the purpose, as he himself declared, "of qualifying teachers for instruct- 
ing the children of farmers and mechanics, in the application of experimental chem- 
istry, philosophy, and natural history to agriculture, domestic economy, the arts and 
manufactures," and endowed by his large liberality, entitles him to be ranked among 
the great benefactors of his age, and will forever enshrine his name in the fragrant 
memories of thousands who have partaken of his bounty. 

While in the legislature of his native state, Mr. Van Rensselaer lent all his in- 
fluence to promote the interests of education and internal improvement. On the 
death of the illustrious Clinton, he was selected to fill his seat in the presidential 
chair of the " Board of Canal Commissioners," an honor truly deserved and labo- 
riously earned by his entire devotion to all the great interests of the state. When 
we add to all this that he passed through life uncontaminated by his contact with 
the world, we have finished the picture of "a good citizen and an honest man." 




MILLARD FILLMORE. 



THE happy operation of our free institutions was never more beautifully illus- 
trated than in the elevation of the subject of this notice to the high office he 
so recently occupied. Under monarchical and aristocratic governments men are 
born to office, or have it "thrust upon them;" but under our own there are no 
obstacles to genuine talent or genius. The child born to the humblest condition 
of life may aspire to all the honors and emoluments of office, if he have the neces- 
sary qualifications for the same. 

Millard Fillmore was born at Summer Hill, Cayuga county, New York, on 
the 7th of January, 1800. His father was a farmer in humble circumstances, and 
the lad's opportunities for acquiring an education were very limited. He was 
obliged to do the boy's work on his father's farm, and, as soon as he was old enough, 
he was sent from home to earn his own support. At the age of twelve he was 
placed with a clothier to learn the business of dressing cloth, and soon after he was 
apprenticed to a wool carder to learn his trade. But the electric spark had been 
struck in the mind of young Fillmore at his birth, and every year developed more 
and more his strong yearnings for knowledge ; and, during the heavy four years of 
his apprenticeship, he devoted every available moment of his leisure time to reading 



698 MILLARD FILLMORE. 

and study, thus remedying in some good degree the deficiency of his early edu- 
cation. 

At nineteen, Mr. Fillmore was master of his business, and ready to commence 
the world on his own account. About this time, Judge Wood, of Cayuga county, 
discovering the latent talent of the youthful wool carder, offered to take him into his 
office and defray his expenses while he went through a regular course of legal study. 
He accepted with gratitude this generous offer, doing what he could to make the 
burden to his benefactor lighter, by teaching a school during part of the time. 

In 1821, he left Judge Wood's office, and went to Buffalo to complete his studies; 
and in 1823, he opened an office in the town of Aurora, and commence^l the prac- 
tice of his chosen profession. In 1827, he was admitted as an attorney, and in 1829, 
as a counsellor to the Supreme Court. In the same year his political career com- 
menced on his being chosen a member to the State Assembly from the county of 
Erie. In 1830, he removed to Buffalo, and entered into a much more extensive 
practice of his profession. 

In 1833, Mr. Fillmore took his seat in the lower house of Congress, having be^" 
elected the year preceding. He was elected successively to the twenty-fifth, 
sixth, and twenty-seventh Congresses, in all of which he showed himself an active 
and faithful servant to his constituents. He served on several committees, and held 
a prominent situation in the " committee on elections." At the close of this last 
session he declined to serve any longer, and retired to Buffalo, where he devoted 
himself to the business of his profession. By his diligence and fidelity he gamed 
the esteem and confidence of those who best knew him, and rapidly rose to a high 
rank among the members of the bar. 

In 1844, he reluctantly became the whig candidate for the office of governor of 
the State of New York, and suffered defeat. In 1847, he was elected to the office 
of state comptroller by a handsome majority, and held that office until he was nom- 
inated by the whigs, in 1848, as their candidate for Vice President of the United 
States ; General Zachary Taylor being the candidate of the same party for the office 
of President. Having been elected in the autumn of the same year by a hand- 
some majority, on the 4th of March, 1849, he entered upon the duties of his office, 
and took his place as the presiding officer of the United States Senate. 

General Taylor wore the robes of his new office but a brief year, being sum- 
moned to a higher theatre of action, amidst the lamentations of the entire nation, 
and Mr, Fillmore legally became his successor in the presidential chair, which place 
he occupied until the election of a democratic candidate in the present year, dis- 
charging his high duties with much dignity and fairness. He retires from office 
with the respect of all parties. 

Mr. Fillmore owes his present position in society to his own exertions. What he 
is he has made himself. From a very humble origin he has risen to greatness, climb- 
ing the ladder of his fame, round by round, with indefatigable industry and untiring 
perseverance, thus affording the youth of our country the important lesson, that 

" Honor and fame from no condition rise." 




^.7;f ;„-• 



HENRY C. CAREY. 



HENRY C. CAREY, "the chief apostle of the American School of Political 
Economy," as he has been aptly styled, was born in Philadelphia, in Decem- 
ber, 1793. His father, Matthew Carey, whose name is an ornament to his country's 
history, was a writer of some eminence on political economy, but chiefly in carrying 
out the views of other men, scarcely venturing on any new ideas. Henry, on the 
other hand, was an originator, and nearly the first writer who has thrown any new 
light upon this abstruse science since the commencement of the present century. 
His father was a very practical man, and taught his children to take a practical 
view of every thing in which they took any interest, and the mathematical structure 
of his own mind enabled him to do so with the ease of second nature. 

At the early age of seven, the subject of this notice was taken into his father's 
bookstore, then one of the largest "book concerns" in the country, and here he was 
carefully and thoroug'^iy taught all the minutice of the trade. Method was the first 
law of that house, and the second the harmony and cooperation of every depart- 
ment towards one great end. Here he grew up thoughtful, methodical, and diligent. 
It was, perhaps, the best school in which to strengthen and develop the great traits 
of his mind, for it brought him continually in contact with the practical operations 

55 



700 HENRYC. CAREY 

of life, and led him to those habits of observation and comparison which are so 
remarkably manifest in all the products of his pen. 

At the age of twenty-one he left his father's bookstore, and after a few years of 
study and travel, he became, in 1821, a partner in the business, well known as the 
house of " Carey, Lea, & Carey," and " Carey & Lea." He was a member of this 
house seven or eight years, during which time he found opportunity to store his 
mind with much valuable statistical and general knowledge which might be of use 
to him in the investigations he had already resolved to make in the great framework 
of society. During this period he was married to Miss Leslie, — sister of the painter 
of that name, — and spent a year abroad, studying the institutions of Europe and 
the civilization of the countries which he visited. 

In 1836, Mr. Carey published his first book. It was entitled " An Essay on the 
Rates of Wages." In 1840 it was greatly enlarged, and published in three volumes, 
octavo, under the title of " The Principles of Political Economy." These works 
required an extensive and patient examination of the various systems of law and 
labor prevailing in civilized society, and accordingly we find every proposition of 
Mr. Carey's work fortified and illustrated with a host of facts, which he has gatheuV 
from every corner of the woi-ld and every department of human labor. 

In 1848, Mr. Carey published his " Past and Present." The field surveyed in this 
book is a broad one, — broader than that of any other book of our time, — for it dis- 
cusses every interest of man. The ideas are original — whether true or not, they 
are both new and bold. They are based upon a great law of nature, and it is the 
first time that any system of political economy has been offered to the world that 
was so based. The consequence is, that all the facts place themselves as complete- 
ly as did the planets when Copernicus had satisfied himself that the earth revolved 
around the sun. This work attracted much attention both at home and in Europe, 
and it was translated into several languages, and published in France and Sweden. 
Besides these, he has published " Harmony of Interests," in which he treats of the 
reciprocity of trade ; and two works on the currency — the larger of which treats of 
the "credit system in France, England, and the United States." 

Mr. Carey has attempted a difficult and almost thankless labor. His first step is 
a quarrel with the cupidity of our nation. Sudden and large returns are the only 
acceptable conditions of trade to the great majority of those who u.re engaged in it, 
and when the true political economist treats of the ultimates of life, he can hardly 
expect to catch the ear of men who listen only to the chink of the almighty dollar. 
Reforms always commence with the few, and we believe there are a goodly few 
who are ready to learn the great principles of life, and to be governed by them. We 
think, also, that the number is constantly on the increase, and before the nineteenth 
century expires we hope to witness a considerable advance towards a truer knowl- 
edge of man's greatest interests, and a heartier cooperation of all stout hearts and 
strong hands in the good work of "undoing the heavy burdens" under which af- 
flicted humanity groans and sweats, crying daily and hourly for deliverance. 




CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 



CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN, the poet, was born in Philadelphia, on the 
17th of January, 1771. Frail and delicate, his childhood was passed in the 
quiet home of hi parents, who were Quakers, and received such attention and as- 
sistance in his studies as they were capable of giving to a numerous progeny. He 
was a studious and observing child, and considered a prodigy in his father's house- 
hold. At ten he was placed under the care of a teacher by the name of Proud, with 
whom he remained for the space of five years, making prodigious progress in the 
acquisition of the Latin, Greek, and French languages, and mathematics. He paid 
considerable attention to belles lettres, also, while a pupil of Proud, and commenced 
his poetical career. He actually began three epic poems, which perished in the fire 
before their "capstone was brought forth with rejoicing." 

At the earnest solicitation of his friends, young Brown commenced the study of 
law. But it found in his spirit no sympathy, and with his taste no consonance, and 
flinging Blackstone to the bats, he determined to devote his life to the more con- 
genial pursuits of literature. Joining to himself some half dozen young men of 
congenial spirit, a club was formed for the purpose of mutual improvement, before 
which each read, from time to time, the productions of his own pen, the others 



702 CHARLESBROCKDENBROWN. 

discussing their merits and demerits. About this time, also, for the purpose of in- 
vigorating a feeble frame and indulging his taste for the romantic, he made frequent 
and sometimes quite long pedestrian excursions into the country. 

In 1793, lie went to the city of New York to visit one of his dear friends, who 
hat] removed thither for the practice of law. Here he became acquainted with 
several other young men of literary tastes and pursuits. Dividing his time between 
his native city and New York, he now devoted himself earnestly to the cultivation 
of his mind, and preparation for a public writer. He cherished somewhat ardent 
views of the capacities of humanity, and believed he had a mission to fulfil in the 
work of elevating its standard and actual condition, and satisfied himself, after much 
deliberation, that the novel was the most effective instrument of reaching the hu- 
man heart. After several fugitive newspaper publications and pieces of light pre- 
tensions in the reviews, he startled the world with the production of his "Wieland," 
which was published in 1798. This established his reputation as an author of the 
highest rank, a reputation which all his subsequent efforts only served to confirm and 
elevate. 

In 1799, Brown established a monthly magazine in New York, while at the same 
time he was engaged in " Arthur Mervyn " and " Edgar Huntley." In 1800, " Arthur 
Mervyn " was given to the world, and the same year " Ormond " and " Edgar 
Huntley." In 1801, he published " Clara Howard," and in 1804, his last novel, 
"Jane Talbot," which was first issued in England, and afterwards in Philadelphia. 

During this year Mr. Brown was married to Miss Elizabeth Linn, daughter of 
Rev. Dr. Linn, a Presbyterian clergyman of some eminence in the city of New 
York. He immediately removed to Philadelphia, in which city he continued to 
reside until his death. On his settling in that city, he assumed the editorial man- 
agement of the " Literary Magazine and American Register." This was a political 
and literary monthly, published by Conrad. Besides the criticisms of this journal, 
he also published several political pamphlets, one of which was upon the subject of 
the admission of Louisiana into the Union, and which evinces an amount of states- 
manship and patriotism that could scarce be expected from a pen hitherto devoted 
exclusively to belles lettres. 

Mr. Brown passed the last years of his life in great enjoyment, although the dark 
presentiment that he would fill an early grave ■^- a victim to consumption — was 
constantly before him. In his wife he found a true friend of congenial tastes, and 
in his children, — there were four of them, two of which were twin boys, — his par- 
ents, who resided near, with his brothers and sisters, he found the solace ot an en- 
larged and much-loving affection, and the centre of all his earthly hopes. No situ- 
ation could be conceived more conducive to human happiness. But it could not 
secure him from the insidious advances of the all-conquering foe. Early in 1809, 
consumption rapidly developed itself to the alarmed inmates of that happy circle. 
Resort was had to travel, but it only aggravated the disease, which, with accelerated 
force, hurried him to his grave. In February, 1810, he expired in the midst of his 
family, an example of how a good man should die. 




COMMODORE DAVID PORTER. 



DAVID PORTER was born in Boston, on the 1st of February, 1780. His 
opportunities for obtaining an education were not large, and at the age of 
nineteen he decided to gratify the long-cherished wish of his boyish heart to be a 
sailor. With the help of sonne friends who were struck with the sprightly appear- 
ance of the lad, he obtained a midshipman's warrant, and sailed at once in the 
United States frigate Constellation. Falling in with the French frigate I'lnsurgente, 
he ha.^ lis first taste of war, and such was his intrepid conduct in the engagement 
which followed, that he was promoted to the office of lieutenant ; and by his great 
skill and valor during the cruise which succeeded in the West Indian seas, rose at 
once to high esteem with his superiors and with the nation. 

Lieutenant Porter accompanied our first squadron to the Mediterranean, and won 
golden opinions by his intrepidity and nautical skill. In the autumn of 1803, while 
on board the frigate Philadelphia, she was run upon a rock and captured by a Trip- 
olin frigate of superior force, and the officers and crew were carried prisoners to 
Tripoli. Here he served out a painful imprisonment; when, on the conclusion ot 
peace with that barbaric power, he was released. He first went to Syracuse, where 
he was appointed to the command of a brig called the Enterprise, in which he 



704 COMMODORE DAVID PORTER 

cruised the Mediterranean for six years with no signal adventure, when he returned 
to the United States, and was appointed to the command of the flotijla station, in 
the vicinity of New Orleans. 

On the declaration of war against Great Britain, in 1812, Lieutenant Porter was 
elevated to the rank of captain, and appointed to the command of the frigate Essex, 
on board of which he displayed his pennant, and sailed from New York on the 3d of 
July of that year. He had been out of port but a few days, when he fell in with 
the enemy's sloop-of-war Alert, which, after a few minutes' fight, he conquered and 
carried into port. 

In October he sailed for the coast of Brazil, and after capturing a number of 
valuable prizes, he continued his route to the Pacific. Here much valuable property 
belonging to the enemy fell into his hands, and he swelled his force by several ex- 
cellent ships which he had captured from the English. His brilliant career excited 
the enmity of the English, who despatched a large number of heavy-armed ships to 
capture or destroy him. Learning their movements, he proceeded to one of the 
islands of the Washington group to put his ships in complete repair, and give his 
men a chance for repose ; took possession of the island in the name of the United 
States, and named it after President Madison, then occupying the highest post in 
the nation. This island is situated in latitude 10'' S. and longitude 140° W. from 
Greenwich, and was a populous and fertile region, and very valuable as a rendezvous 
to our ships engaged in the Pacific trade. 

Having thoroughly refitted his ships and invigorated his men. Commodore Por- 
ter sailed on the 12th of December for home. In February he reached the coast of 
Chili, when he encountered a British squadron, which was hunting up his where- 
abouts, of a force nearly double that of his own, under the command of Com- 
modore Hillyar, who, in violation of all known laws of nations, proceeded to attack 
him within pistol shot of a neutral territory. Finding that the English commander 
had violated every law of honor and courtesy, he put himself on the defence as best 
he might ; and after a hardly-contested battle of three hours, he surrendered to the 
enemy. 

On his return home. Commodore Porter was every where received with the great- 
est demonstration of respect and honor. Congress and the states voted separate 
honors to the hero of the Pacific and the Mediterranean. He afterwards a 'ad in 
the defence of Baltimore, and on the establishment of peace he was appointed one 
of the three commissioners to superintend the operations of the navy, to which he 
had been so great an honor. 

Subsequently Commodore Porter was appointed to the command of the West 
Indian fleet sent to those seas to protect American commerce from the ravages of 
the hordes of freebooters which had made these islands their place of rendezvous, 
which it was his good fortune to disperse and destroy, and for which service he re- 
ceived substantial and honorable reward. 




TIMOTHY DWIGIIT, D.D., LL. D. 



THIS somewhat celebrated scholar and divine was born at Northampton, Massa- 
chusetts, on the 4th day of May, 1752. His remarkable precocity was the 
delight of his parents and the astonishment of his early teachers ; and at the age 
of t' ' .een he entered Yale College, graduating with great credit and promise in 
1769. Immediately on leaving college, he opened a grammar school in New Haven, 
which he continued until 1771, when he was elected tutor in the college. He re- 
ceived his master's degree in 1772, on which occasion he pronounced an oration on 
the history, eloquence, and poetry of the Bible. This oration was published both in 
this country and in England. 

In 1777, the college was broken up for a season, when Mr. Dwight repaired with 
his class to Wethersfield, Connecticut, and was shortly after nominated as a chap- 
lain in the navy, which office he held but a short period, on account of the death of 
his father. He immediately removed to Northampton and assumed the paternal 
duties of a numerous family, which were discharged with great discretion and deli- 
cacy, as well as fidelity. He established an academy at this place, which became 
quite famous, and was resorted to by large classes of young men, drawn thither by 
his fame. He was also chosen twice, while residing here, to represent the town in 
the legislature of the state. 



706 TIMOTHY DWIGHT, D. D., LL. D 

" About this time he had several flattering offers made him from different towns in 
Massachusetts to settle as a clergyman, all of which he saw fit to decline. In 1783, 
he accepted an invitation to take charge of the parish of Greenfield, in the town of 
Fairfield, in Connecticut. At this place he established an academy for the reception 
of vouth of both sexes, which soon gained a reputation unparalleled in any similar 
institution in this country. It was indebted for its celebrity to no extraneous aid 
whatever ; and rested, for support, solely on the talents and exertions of the founder." 

While a minister of Greenfield he published his poem, entitled the " Conquest of 
Canaan," which was soon after republished in England, and won for the author 
considerable fame. In 1794, he also published his " Greenfield Hill," a poem of 
some considerable beauty and excellence. 

In 1795, on the death of President Stiles, Mr. Dwight was elected to preside over 
the classes of Yale College. On his accession to the presidency of this institution, 
he found it in a very depressed condition. Without funds or any other means to 
promote its growth, with but a narrow range of studies, he set himself assiduously to 
raise the character and real condition of the college to the high place it deserved to 
occupy among the educational institutions of the land. All this, by dint of his own 
energy and unwearied labor, and through the influence of his great popularity, he 
most successfully accomplished, and at the time of his death it was one of the most 
flourishing institutions in the United States. 

For twenty-one years Dr. Dwight held the office of president of Yale College ; 
and perhaps no man ever labored with a more unselfish and devoted zeal than he to 
build up the character and extend the influences of the college. He discharged not 
only the duties of president, but for many years he officiated as professor of divinity, 
lie wrote and delivered, in this capacity, one hundred and seventy-three discourses, 
which, after his death, were published under the title of "Theology Explained and 
Defended." He travelled also quite extensively during his presidency, and published 
his observations in two respectable volumes, which have afforded edification and 
instruction to thousands. He continued to attend to the duties of his office up to 
the time of his death, hearing the recitation of a theological class only a v/eek be- 
fore that event, which occurred on the 8th of January, 1817, at the age of sixty-five. 

Dr. Dwight had the honor of being a member of most of the literary and philo- 
sophical societies in this country. He was likewise honored with the degree of doc- 
tor in divinity by the college at Princeton, and with the degree of doctor of laws by 
The university of Cambridge. 




LAURA BRIDGMAN, 



THE deaf, dumb, and. blind girl, whose interesting history has excited a thrilling 
interest in the heart of every philanthropic person in both this country and the 
old world, was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, on the 21st of December, 1S29 
A puny and sickly infant from her birth, before she was two years of age she lost 
both sight and hearing through the severity of her disease, and she did not recover 
her health until she was nearly four, when it was discovered that the senses of smell 
and taste were also nearly destroyed. What a situation for the poor child ! What 
was this bright world, so full of pleasing sights, and sounds, and odors, to her ? for she 
dwelt in more than Egyptian darkness, and the silence of eternal night surrounded 
hrr. There were the blue heavens above her, and smiling faces all around her — but 
she could not get even a glimpse of them ; the happy voices of childhood, the merry 
music of the birds, and the sweet tones of affection filled the air about her — but 
her ear was sealed to them all ; flowers were shedding their rich fragrance all about, 
filling earth and air with their perfumes of Araby — to her, alas! they were as 
nought. Yet she exhibited traits of intellect which gave evidence that the darkness 
and the silence were not spiritual, that the inner ray was not extinct, and that, if it 
could be reached, it could be developed, and the poor soul exhumed from the dark 
grave in which it had so unfortunately been buried. ^" 



708 LAURA BRIDGMAN. 

It was at this juncture that her case came to the knowledge of Dr. Howe, of the 
Blind and Deaf Asylum in Boston. Immediately he set out on a journey to pay 
her family a visit. He found her a finely-formed girl, with every physical manifes- 
tation of intelligence and activity. Desirous of making the attempt to develop that 
benighted intellect, he easily persuaded her parents to intrust the child to his care, 
and she became a member of his interesting family in 1837. 

Laura was but eight years old when she entered the institution of Dr. Howe, at 
South Boston. For a long time but little progress was made in her education, and 
what she learned was purely mechanical, just as dogs and monkeys are taught to 
perform their varied tricks ; but at the end of three months her intellect was awa- 
kened, and she began to learn with astonishing quickness. She manifested the great- 
est delight also in her new acquirements, and pursued her studies with the greatest 
eagerness, turning her head one side and apparently listening with the greatest in- 
terest, until she began to comprehend the lesson she was learning, when her face 
would become suddenly lit up with the smiles of an animated and grateful intelli- 
gence most pleasing to behold. 

At the end of a year her instructor writes of Laura, in his annual report, " Of 
beautiful sights, and sweet sounds, and pleasant odors, she has no conception ; nev- 
ertheless she seems as happy and playful as a bird or a lamb. She never seems to 
repine, but has all the buoyancy and playfulness of childhood. She is fond of fun 
and frolic, and when playing with the children her shrill laugh sounds the loudest 
among the group." She made great progress in the manual alphabet, and could 
communicate with astonishing celerity with her teacher and others. 

About a year and a half after Laura entered the institution, her mother made her 
a visit. She did not recognize her at first, to the great grief of the mother ; but after 
a little while the truth flashed upon her mind, and she manifested the greatest joy 
and affection, and ever since has spoken of her with the strongest expressions of 
attachment. 

Would that we had space to speak more at length on the history of this interest- 
ing mute, but we must content ourself with a brief summary of the traits of her 
intellectual and moral character. She gives evidence of a strong mind, possessing 
an almost insatiable thirst for knowledge, and the capacity for thoroughly digesting 
and appropriating it. The relation and fitness of things seem almost instinctive to 
her, so admirably is her causality developed. To learn seems to be the desire of her 
life. In her moral character the most beautiful traits constantly appear like rich 
clusters upon a vine. She seems to have an innate perception of what is right and 
fit, amiable and pure, never uttering a thought or assuming a position which could 
offend the most fastidious taste ; and " it is beautiful to behold her continual glad- 
ness — her keen enjoyment of existence — her expansive love — her unhesitating con- 
fidence — her sympathy with suffering — her conscientiousness, truthfulness, and 
hopefulness." 




HON. WILLIAM WEIGHT. 



WILLIAM WRIGHT was born in Clarksville, Roc-kland county, New York 
near the line which divides that state from New Jersey, in 1794. His father 
determining to give William a liberal education, after a brief time spent in such 
schools as the place afforded, sent him at an early age to the academy at Pough- 
keepsie. New York, where he pursued his studies until he was fourteen years of age. 
At this period, 1808, his father died, leaving to his family no other wealth than an 
honest fame, on which William was compelled to leave school and seek some means 
of a livelihood. Accordingly he was apprenticed by one of his uncles to Anson G. 
Phelps, to learn the trade of saddle and harness making. 

During this apprenticeship, the energy and economy of his character, which 
has so distinguished his subsequent life, became manifest; for at the close of his 
term of service he found himself in possession of a sum of money sufficient to enter 
into trade, and to be the nucleus to a large fortune. With the sum of three hun- 
dred dollars, he removed to Bridgeport in 1815, and, hiring a smaU store, he filled it 
with merchandise, and commenced a merchant's lite. Here he soon began to de- 
velop that shrewd and calculating economy which has raised him to the very head 
of the manufacturing interests in New Jersey, into which state he removed in 1822. 



710 HON. WILLIAM WRIGHT. 

He settled in Newark, where he entered with his usual vigor into the manufacturing 
business, in which he has ever since been engaged, and by which he has amassed a 
princely fortune. 

The intelligent activity of Mr. Wright, together with his strict integrity, marked 
him as a man to be intrusted with office, and he was repeatedly solicited to allow 
his name to be placed in the canvass for various offices in the gift of his fellow- 
citizens. For many years he resisted all importunities, but, in 1839, he suffered his 
name to be run on the mayoralty ticket, when he was elected without opposition. 
He filled the office of mayor of Newark three years, to the entire acceptance of the 
burghers of that flourishing city. 

In 1843, he was elected to Congress, by the fifth district of New Jersey, where he 
served through two terms with true devotion to the great manufacturing interests of 
New Jersey, as well as of the whole Union. 

Declining a reelection, Mr. Wright was, in 1847, unanimously nominated by the 
whig state convention as a candidate for the office of governor for the State of New 
Jersey; but owing to some defection in the party to which he belonged, he failed of 
his election. This did not, however, destroy the confidence of his fellow-citizens, 
and he continued to sojourn among them, respected as a man of refined in-telligence 
and great business talents, as well as a broad and liberal philanthropy. By a skil- 
ful and arduous devotion to business, he has accumulated great wealth, and "it has 
always appeared," to use the words of his biographer, " to be a pleasure to him to 
do good with the ample means with which Providence has blessed him. He has not 
locked up his money in his coffers, but has distributed it broadcast, to relieve the 
destitute, to aid the enterprising but poor mechanic, to promote the cause of educa- 
tion, of morals, and of religion. He has ever been the warm and steadfast friend 
of the industrial classes, and in no one instance has he ever departed from that 
policy which secures their rights and promotes theii interests. He is, in private life, 
a courteous, well-bred gentleman, and marked in all his dealings by the strictest in- 
tegrity of action." 




HON. JOHN P. KENNEDY. 



POLITICS and literature seem to have a strong affinity for each other in this 
country, if we may judge from the number of our literary men who have suf- 
fered themselves to be swallowed up in the maelstrom of politics. The subject of 
this sketch is one of the many of our literary-political men who have shone in let- 
ters and in government. 

John P. Kennedy was the oldest son of an Irishman who came to this country 
before the war of the revolution, and settling in Baltimore became a prosperous 
merchant. He was born in that city on the 25th of October, 1795. After due prep- 
aration he entered Baltimore College in 1809, and graduated with considerable dis- 
tinction in 1812. At the time of his graduation, Baltimore was the theatre of great 
warlike preparations, and our young bachelor of arts, moved by a patriot impulse 
and a desire of military renown, enlisted as a private volunteer soldier, and served 
in the ranks, taking part in the battles of Bladensburg and North Point. 

On receiving an honorable discharge he studied law, and was admitted to the 
Baltimore bar in 1816. He immediately entered into a successful practice, and in 
1820, was elected to a seat in the legislature of his native state, and reelected to the 
same situation in 1821 and 1822. 



712 HON JOHN P. KENNEDY. 

In 1818, he commenced his literary career, by publishing, in semi-monthly num- 
bers, " The Red Book," a work of a playful and satirical character, which excited 
considerable attention, and was read quite extensively. 

In 1830, Mr. Kennedy gave his " Swallow Barn " to the public, by whom it was 
received with the most gratifying manifestations, and immediately established his 
reputation, as an author. 

In 1818, Mr. Kennedy met, while on business in the Pendleton district of South 
Carolina, a man who had been an actor in some of the exciting scenes of our rev- 
olution, and the incidents of which he took down at that time from the lips of the 
narrator. These he wrought into a work of fiction, to which he gave the name 
of " Horseshoe Robinson," and published it two years after his " Swallow Barn." 
Few works of fiction have been produced in this country which have attained a 
higher degree of public favor than this. This must be said to be the book on which 
the popularity of the author rests, as it is far ahead of his other works in those 
brilliant imaginings which give such true zest to the pages of the novel. 

In 1838, he wrote and published " Rob of the Bowl," a story intended to illus- 
trate portions of the earlier history of Maryland ; and, in 1840, he sent into the 
world " Quod Libet," a political satire, having special reference to the unprece- 
dented scenes and topics of the exciting presidential canvass of that year. 

Six years subsequent to this he published the " Life of William Wirt," in which 
he has given evidence that his pen is as suitable to trace the sober facts of history 
as to revel in the picturesque fields of fancy. 

In 1838, he was elected to Congress, and continued to hold his seat through the 
twenty -fifth, twenty-seventh, and twenty-eighth sessions of that body. He was ap- 
pointed chairman of the committee on commerce, for the session of 1841. His 
reports, while occupying this high station, give evidence of great ability, and a 
thorough acquaintance with the subjects he was called upon to investigate. 

In October, 1846, having been defeated while a candidate for the twenty-ninth 
Congress, he was taKcn up by the whigs of Baltimore and elected to the state legis- 
lature, a seat he had occupied in that body more than twenty years before. He was 
chosen speaker of the Assembly by a handsome majority, and rendered himself con- 
spicuous for the part he took m preventing the repudiation of his native state, and 
securing the restoration of the public credit. From this time to 1852, he held no 
public office, when he was selected by President Fillmore to fill the vacancy oc- 
casioned in his cabinet by the resignation of Mr. Graham, as secretary of the navy. 

Besides the literary productions already enumerated, Mr. Kennedy has written 
and published a large number of reports, lectures, and essays on political, agricul- 
tural, historical, and scientific subjects, which, collected and published, would make 
an exceedingly voluminous work, and show him to have been a diligent, able, and 
useful member of society. 




HON. THEODORE ERELINGHUYSEN, 



WHOSE father was a ])atriotic delegate to the Continental Congress, and after- 
wards captain of a volunteer artillery company daring the war, fighting 
bravely the battles of freedom, and subsequently elected to the highest post of honor 
in the legislatis-e councils of the nation; was born in the county of Somerset, New 
Jersey, on the 28th of March, 1787. He was early in life placed in the school of 
Rev. Dr. Finley, then a celebrated teacher, and since a distinguished friend and ad- 
vocate of the cause of African colonization, where he was prepared for admission 
to college. In 1800, at the age of thirteen, he entered at Princeton, and was grad- 
uated from that institution in 1804, with the highest honors of his class. 

On leaving college, Mr. Frelinghuysen, deciding on the law for a profession, en- 
tered the office of an elder brother, where he remained until 1806, when he removed 
to the office of Richard Stockton, Esq., and completed his studies. Having acquired 
his profession and attained his majority, he opened an office and commenced the 
practice of his profession, rising rapidly into popularity and success. 

Although Mr. Frelinghuysen never became a mere politician, yet he took a 
marked and decided stand on all the great national and local questions which 
agitated society, and joined and acted with the whig party; and, in 1817, he was 



71-t HON. THEODORE FR ELING H U YSE N . 

elected by the legislature of his native state to the responsible office of attorney 
general. He held this station until 1826, when he was elected to a seat in the 
Senate of the United States, having previously declined to serve as a judge of the 
Supreme Court, to which he had been elected by the legislature of New Jersey. 

The course of Mr. Frelinghuysen, while he acted in the councils of his country, 
was alike patriotic and honorable to his heart. He did what he could to shield and 
protect the poor Indian, and to relieve the horrors of the unhappy slave. He became 
the very master spirit of the colonization movement, and contributed more than any 
other towards the establishment of those free colonies of blacks in their native coun- 
try which form a distinguishing feature of the nineteenth century. 

Mr. Frelinghuysen took decided grounds on the great question of disunion, and 
labored to preserve inviolate the sacred bond which is signified in the classic motto 
on our national coat of arms — " J5 Pluribus UmimP Nothing disturbed him more 
than the bare idea of disunion, and his voice was heard eloquently mingling with 
those of Calhoun, Clay, Webster, and others, in favor of " concession rather than se- 
cession ; " and when, in 1834, he retired from the Senate, he carried with him the 
respect of every member of that body, of which he had been an active, intelligent, 
consistent, and independent member for the space of eight years. 

" In 1835, Mr. Frelinghuysen was succeeded in the Senate by a gentleman of dif- 
ferent political opinions, in accordance with those of the party then dominant in the 
New Jersey legislature. He returned to his native state, quietly resumed the prac- 
tice of law, and, beloved and admired by his fellow-citizens of every sect and party, 
seemed to have retired forever from the political service of his country. In 1838, 
he became the chancellor of the University of New York, and transferred his resi- 
dence to that city." 

It was while he occupied the elevated and responsible position of head to this 
university that he was nominated by the Baltimore convention, in 1844, to the high 
and honorable post of Vice President of the United States. 

Not as a politician or statesman, however, does Mr. Frelinghuysen appear to the 
best advantage before the country and the world ; but it is as a man, whose large 
heart and expansive intelligence espouses the cause of humanity ; and his name will 
be forever gloriously associated with the Bible, education, emancipation, and liberty, 
as one of man's noblest, boldest, and most successful champions. 




EEV. CHARLES LOWELL, D. D. 



ri^HE oldest clergyman in the " city of the pilgrims " at the present time, who has 
JL charge of a parish, is the Rev. Charles Lowell, senior pastor of the Lynde 
Street Church. His colleague is the Rev. Cyrus Augustus Bartol, a man of an un- 
commonly high order of clerical talents, and allowed to be one of the most elegant 
writers in New England. Rarely has any pulpit held at the same time two such 
accomplished pastors. 

Dr. Lowell is renowed for those peculiar traits of character so necessary to a suc- 
cessful and popular pastorate. For nearly a half century he has walked among his 
reverent and loving flock with an almost unequalled success. In the place of birth, 
at the marriage altar, in the darkened chamber of sickness, or at the going out at the 
gate of departure, he has been a father, counsellor, and sympathizing friend, " rejoi- 
cing with those who do rejoice, and weeping with those who weep." Exemplary in 
his life, faithful in his Christian rebukes, kind and persuasive in his advice, ever ready 
to listen to the humblest of his flock and to greet all alike, he has secured their esteem 
and won their regard. The disturbing causes which have broken up so many par- 
ishes, and severed the ties of so many pastors and their flocks, have not entered the 

57 



716 REV CHARLESLOWELL D D 

happy fold which delight to own him as its earthly shepherd. His health has always 
been delicate, and latterly he has become quite infirm ; but he still performs a part of 
the duties of the sanctuary, and his trembling but peculiarly melodious voice still 
occasionally falls upon the ears of his beloved people, in solemn words of warning 
and cheering tones of encouragement. Long may his precious life be spared to bless 
his flock and make glad the vineyard of our common Lord. 

Charles Lowell was born in Boston in 1782, when that now thriving city was a 
bustling town of some thirty thousand inhabitants. He received his rudimentary 
education in the schools of his native town, even then famous the world over, now 
the model schools of America. Here he made rapid progress in his studies, and won 
the love of his teachers and friends by his gentle demeanor and diligent conduct. 
After a thorough preparatory course of studies he entered Harvard University, Cam- 
bridge, Massachusetts, in the summer of 1796. 

The course of young Lowell while a member of the University was highly credit- 
able to him. Affable and courteous to his fellow-students, respectful and reverent to 
the oflicers of the college, diligent in his studies, and unspotted in his life, he acquired 
a highly respectable education, and won the love and regard of every one with whom 
he was connected ; and in 1800 he went forth from his alma mater with honor. Born 
to wealth and reared in the midst of luxury, he decided to follow his divine Master 
in the great work of saving lost and ruined man, and chose the clerical profession. 

The "School of the Prophets," as its proteges delight to call it, ("the divinity 
school,") had not been established at Cambridge, and the youthful Lowell determined 
to prepare himself for his noble mission in Europe. Accordingly he sailed for 
England the following year. After visiting the various towns of Great Britain he went 
over to Scotland, and fixed his quarters in Edinburgh, where he pursued and com- 
pleted his theological studies. After travelling somewhat extensively in Europe he 
returned to his native city, and commenced those labors which have continued until 
now, through a period of nearly a half century. Having accepted the invitation of 
the church and society worshipping in Lynde Street, he was ordained pastor on the 
first day of the year 1806, where for thirty years he labored alone, diligently, and most 
successfully. It now became necessary that he should have assistance, as his health, 
never robust, had greatly failed him, and he asked the aid of a colleague. Respond- 
ing to his expressed desire, his people soon invited Rev. Cyrus A. Bartol, then fresh 
from the school at Cambridge, to become his assistant and coadjutor, and he was 
accordingly ordained as junior pastor. Sixteen years have gone by, and the union 
is still undissolved, and these two beloved pastors labor together as true yoke-fellows 
in the cause of their divine Master. 




ALVIN ADAMS. 



IT needs no factitious foisting into public station to make a great man. Many a 
man of moderate calibre has sat in the seat of power and honor, while many of 
sterling worth and profound attainments have passed quietly through life, " unhon- 
ored and unsung." Many a man is great only by accident. Some make themselves 
great by their own energy and skill, or tact. Such a man is the subject of this brief 
notice, who, from an humble beginning, has graven his name on this mercantile age 
with the pen of steel, and made it a household word on the great " Exchange of the 
World." 

Alvin Adams, the leading partner of the well-known express company, ^^ Adams 
^ Co.,''^ whose lines of travel run to the ends of the earth, and whose banking houses 
and express offices are in all the great cities of America, was born in Andover, Ver- 
mont, on the 16th of June, 1804. His parents were respectable farmers, and brought 
up their family to habits of industry and honesty. At the age of eight Alvin had 
the misfortune to lose both his parents, who died within a week of each other, leaving 
him in charge of an elder brother, who assumed the management of the family, 
keeping them together on the old homestead. 



718 ALVIN ADAMS 

In 1820, at the age of sixteen, young Adams went out from the paternal home, 
and became an assistant in a hotel in Woodstock, in his native state. Here he 
served for four years with great fidelity, at the end of which time he went to Boston, 
and engaged in mercantile pursuits until the year 1840, when his restless ambition 
drove him forth from the "pent-up Utica" of the counting room, and he commenced 
tiie business which has rendered him so famous and world-wide known. " Express- 
ing" was then a business but little attended to and clumsily executed. Already an 
express line had been established between New York and Boston ; but nothing 
daunted, Mr. Adams brought his energy, and patience, and perseverance to the task ; 
and though often discouraged, yet never despairing, he triumphed at length, and 
established his line between the great metropolis of the Middle States and that of 
New England. 

In 1842, Mr. Adams took into partnership Mr. Wm. B. Dinsmore, and extende-d 
his business from both termini of his route to Halifax on the east and New Or- 
leans on the south, branching off to the Canadas on the north and the uninhabitable 
prairies on the west. He found in Mr. Dinsmore a man of like spirit with himself. 
He fixed his residence in the city of New York, where he still resides, a member of 
the firm. 

About this time came that gilded intelligence from the aural regions of California, 
which drove tens of thousands of our citizens from their quiet homes in search of 
sudden wealtV. Mr. Adams, at once perceiving the important part California was 
bound to take in the great commercial enterprises of the world, determined early to 
occupy that important post. In 1849, Mr. D. H. Haskell was admitted to a partner- 
ship in the company, and immediately proceeding to San Francisco, established an 
office in that growing city, which, despite its tremendous losses by fire and flood, has 
become its most important branch. Men of less energy and courage than Messrs. 
Adams & Co. would have quailed under such disastrous and repeated misfortunes. 
But disaster and difficulty seem only to have quickened their energy and strengthened 
their never-flagging enterprise ; and to-day they have the satisfaction of seeing their 
" Express Lines " ramifying the whole country, and their names familiar wherever, in 
the whole earth, men " buy and sell and get gain." 

Besides their ordinary express business — enough, of itself, to fully occupy the 
minds of ordinary men — Adams & Co. have established a banking house in San 
Francisco, through which millions on millions of wealth are transmitted from the 
golden regions of the farther west to all parts of the civilized world. 

In 1852, Messrs. Adams & Co. opened a house in Australia, similar to the one in 
San Francisco, thus showing that their enterprise is not bounded by any other land- 
mark than the outside circumference of the habitable globe. 

The career of Mr. Adams, marked as it has been by entire devotion to his 
business, and an integrity which no gold could seduce, is a beautiful illustration of 
what may be accomplished bi/ an upright and persevering industry in, one direction. 




MRS. EMMA WILLARD. 



PERHAPS no one among our fair countrywomen has done more for the cause 
of female education than Mrs. Emma Willard, so well known for many years 
as the head of the " Troy Female Seminary ; " and her memory is warmly cherished 
in the hearts of thousands of her pupils — wives, mothers, teachers, — who still live 
to call her blessed, as well as thousands more, who, having finished their earthly tasks, 
have gone to their reward on high. She loved the labors of the teacher, and she 
brought to her work uncommonly strong mental powers and endowments, a remark- 
able tact for making others understand what she strove to convey, together with 
a heart brimming to overflow with love for her pupils. Dignified and urbane, strict 
in discipline, and at the same time kind and gentle in her treatment of her pupils, 
she begot and retained their respect, veneration, and affection. 

Mrs. Willard is the daughter of the late Samuel Hart, of Berlin, Connecticut, and 
was born in that place in February, 1787, In her earliest years she had a strong de- 
sire to teach, and nothing used to gratify her more than to gather her playmates 
about her and go through the ceremonies of the " school-maam," which she did with 
a gravity quite laughable to those who observed her. At the early age of sixteen. 



720 MRS. EMMA WILLARD. 

she taught a district school in her native town, and the following year opened a select 
school in the same place. Such was her popularity as a teacher, even at this tender 
age, that the very next summer she was placed at the head of the Berlin Academy. 

In the spring of 1807, Miss Hart received no less than three invitations, from liter- 
ary institutions in as many different states, to take charge of the female department. 
Accepting that from Westfield, Massachusetts, she entered at once upon her duties. 
She remained here but a few weeks, however, for on receiving a second and more 
pressing invitation, she removed to Middlebury, Vermont, where she remained for two 
years at the head of a female academy. Here she became the wife of Dr. John 
Willard, then United States marshal for the district of Vermont, and a leading poli- 
tician. In 1814, she established a female boarding school in Middlebury, and made 
great efforts to elevate the standard of female education. She also prepared and 
published " An Address to the Public," in which she proposed " A Plan for Improving 
Female Education." The plan received very general approval, and Governor Clin- 
ton, of New York, presented it to the notice of the legislature in his annual address. 
Several gentlemen of influence in Waterford, New York, procured the incorporation 
of a school in that place, to the charge of which she was called, and which call she 
accepted, entering upon her duties in the spring of 1819. But the difficulty of ob- 
taining a suitable building for her school, induced her in a short time to accept a 
pressing invitation from a large body of the citizens of Troy, New York, to remove 
her school thither, and in May, 1821, she opened her " Seminary for Young Ladies." 
This was her last change of place, and here for more than seventeen years she devoted 
herself to her noble work of carrying out her plan, and forming the minds of her 
pupils to knowledge and virtue. 

Mrs. Willard lost her husband in 1825 ; but she continued her school until 1830, 
when she took a vacation and went abroad for her health. She became deeply in- 
terested in the cause of Greek education, and on her return, gave the avails of a book 
of her travels, which she published, to promote female education in Greece. In 1838, 
she resigned the care of the Troy school, and retired to Hartford, Connecticut, to spend 
the remnant of her days. Since this time, she has published several school books of a 
high order, and made an educational tour of the United States. In all places she 
was received with considerable demonstration of respect and attachment. In 1846, 
she published a large work, entitled " A Treatise on the Motive Powers which produce 
the Circulation of the Blood," a work that has gained her great credit both at home 
and abroad. In 1849, she published " Last Leaves from American History," giving 
a graphic accovmt of Ihe Mexican war, and an interesting history of California. 
Besides these she has published a small volume of poetry, and written many fugitive 
pieces for the various literary journals of the day. 




JONAS CHICKERING. 



THERE are few men more widely known in all circles of civilized society than he 
whose name stands at the head of this memoir. He is known as a most 
ingenious and scientific mechanician, and his beautiful musical instruments adorn 
the boudoirs and parlors of the intelligent and refined in all the earth. But 
it h in the more immediate circle of his acquaintance and friends that his noble 
manhood is appreciated ; and the thousand spirits he has comforted with his untiring 
benevolence and encouraging smile alone understand and feel how great the good 
man was, the broad extent of whose charities will never be fully known until " the 
revelations of the great day." 

Jonas Chickering was born in the town of Mason, New Hampshire, in 1798. 
He was the third child of a respectable farmer, who, soon after the birth of Jonas, 
removed to the adjoining town of New Ipswich. His opportunities for early im- 
provement were such as all farmers' children in the interior towns enjoy — the dis- 
trict schools. He early lost his mother, but not until her gentle influence had laid 
the foundation of the excellent character so fully developed in mature life. Not sat 
isfied with the monotonous routine of agriculture, and having a great taste foi 
mechanics, at the age of seventeen he apprenticed himself to a cabinet maker in the 



722 JONAS CHICKERING. 

aeighborhood, whom he diligently and faithfully served for the space of three years, 
daring which time he led a life of strict integrity and purity, winning entirely the 
confidence and regard of his master. Daring this time, and long before, he had 
manifested a decided taste for music ; and at the age of twelve he played the fife, 
and not long after the clarionet, in the village band. He also gave considerable time 
to the cultivation of sacred music. 

It was in the last year of his apprenticeship that the genius of Mr. Chickering 
received its first impulse in the* direction in which it was destined to develop and 
.jerfect itself. In the same village a young maiden owned and thrummed a piano, 
much to the edification of the simple youths and maidens of the village. This in- 
nrument, through age and much use, fell into so dilapidated a condition that it 
jecame useless. Our young apprentice undertook its repair, and succeeded far be- 
vond his own and the expectations of the fair owner, little dre'?.ming, while puzzling 
limself over its mazy ramifications, that he was one day to become the prince of 
piano-forte manufacturers. 

Turning his back upon the granite hills of his native state, Mr. Chickering made 
lis way to the gi-eat metropolis of New England in search of employment in the busi- 
.less of his trade. He entered Boston on the 15th of February, 1818 — "a day 
somewhat remarkable as the anniversary of some of his most important subsequent 
business arrangements." On the very day of his arrival he succeeded in making an 
Lirrangement with a cabinet maker, with whom he worked for some time. But he 
.vas not satisfied with his business ; it did not sufficiently excite and gratify those 
organs of constructiveness and beauty with which his Maker had blessed him ; nor 
'lad he forgotten the emotions and aspirations which were born while he was restor- 
ing to order the action of that dilapidated piano in his native village. Accordingly 
ve find him at length in the factory of Mr. Osborn, employing his ingenuity upon 
he various parts which comprise the piano-forte. After laboring for Mr. Osborn for 
hree years, he formed a partnership with Mr. Stewart, with whom he continued but 
a little more than three years, when he found it necessary to dissolve the partnership. 
He now carried on the business alone for some time, when his good fortune led him 
to the acquaintance of Mr. John Mackay, a retired shipmaster of great business tal- 
ents and some capital, with whom he connected himself in the business just twelve 
years after coming to Boston, and on the memorable 15th of February, 1830. 

In 1841 Mr. JNIackay died, and Mr. Chickering made arrangements with the agent 
of Mr. Mackay to continue the business alone, which from this time up to his death he 
conducted on the most enlarged and liberal principles, until he had the satisfaction 
of knowing that his instruments were the best that were manufactured in this or any 
other country. 

But it was not alone as a mechanician that Mr. Chickering became famous. His 
■nquisitive and ingenious mind sought out and applied many improvements both in 
'he action and the case of his instruments, and which has placed his house at the head 
of all the manufacturers of the piano-forte; and, leaving his vast business to the 
worthy hands of his three sons, he went to his grave full of honors, bewailed by thou- 
sands whose pleasure it was to call him friend. He died of a rupture of one of the 
vessels of the brain, on the 8th of December, 1853, aged fifty-six years. 




HEV. HOSEA BALLOU. 



FEW preachers, of any denomination, have produced a stronger sensation, or left 
upon the circle of their mission a more enduring eflfect, than the subject of this 
memoir. Without education, without patronage, with nothing but his own strong 
powers of intellect, amidst the bitterest opposition, he succeeded in building up the 
cause to which he devoted his life. 

HosEA Ballou was born in Richmond, New Hampshire, April 30, 1771. His 
father, Rev. Maturin Ballou, was a baptist clergyman, and had a numerous family of 
children, Hosea being the eleventh and youngest child. Several of his brothers be- 
came preachers, and the whole family sustained a reputation for great piety. At a 
quite early age the subject of this notice received deep religious impressions, and 
while yet a stripling, made a profession of religion, and joined his father's church. 
His mother having died when he was but two years of age, this loss was followed by 
the death of his father when he was fourteen, at the venerable age of eighty-two. 
About this time considerable stir was made in the usually quiet precinct of his home 
by the visit of several Universalist ministers, some of whom he heard. These dis- 
courses led him to inquire if the doctrine were consistent with the word of God, and 

58 



724 REV. IIOSEA BALLOU. 

he resolved to give the subject a thorough investigation. In this labor he had no 
other book than the Holy Scriptures, to the study of which he carried an honest mind 
and a sturdy purpose to adopt such views as they should seem to teach. The result 
was, that he embraced the views of those preachers, in the main, and like an honest 
man, as he was, openly avowed his change. In consequence of this change of views 
he was excommunicated from the Baptist church, when his thoughts were turned to 
the subject of preaching. 

In 1791 Mr. Ballou preached his first sermon in a private house. From this time 
he preached in all the towns adjoining Richmond, until 1794, when he was ordained 
at Oxford by the Univcrsalist convention. In 1796 he was married to Miss Ruth 
Washburn, with whom he lived in great conjugal enjoyment throughout the remain- 
der of his long life. She proved to be an excellent wife, and sympathized with him 
in all his sorrows and his joys. 

A few Universalists in Barnard, Vermont, had formed themselves into a parish, 
who, in 180-3, invited Mr. Ballou to take charge of their religious affairs. There were 
also several families in each of the neighboring towns who joined the parish in Bar- 
nard in the call, and the same year he moved thither, and assumed the oversight of 
these several nuclei of parishes, and preached alternately in the various towns, some- 
times in school houses, sometimes in private houses, and occasionally in a meeting 
house, to which they claimed a right. Here he was reordained in September, 1803, 
and here he labored with great diligence, and amid much persecution, until the year 
1809, when he moved to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, by invitation of the First 
Universalist Church and Society of that place. While in Barnard he wrote and pub- 
lished two works, " Notes on the Parables," and a " Treatise on the Atonement." 
These volumes he compiled without the aid of any other books than the Bible ; and 
although there is little scholastic polish to be found there, the marks of his keen logic 
and biting satire are to be seen on nearly every page. 

On the 8th day of November, 1809, Mr. Ballou was installed over the Univer- 
salist society in Portsmouth, of which he remained the pastor until 1815, when he 
removed to Salem, Massachusetts, and assumed the pastorate of the Universalist 
society in that place, where he remained but two years, and then accepted the call of 
the Second Universalist society in Boston, where he was installed December 25, 
1817, as its first pastor. This society had just completed its place of worship on 
School Street, and it was generally understood that the house was erected with the 
view to its occupancy by Mr. Ballou. Here he remained during the remainder of his 
life, living in great harmony with his people, laboring incessantly, both at home and 
abroad, in the various duties of his profession. He fell quietly asleep on the 7th of 
June, 1852, in the eighty-first year of his age. 

The labors of Mr. Ballou were arduous and extensive. He travelled widely 
throughout the United States, visiting the churches and establishing new ones. Al- 
though he seldom wrote his sermons, yet few clergymen have "l^Titten more than he. 
He was often assailed by the regular clergy and others, his motives vilified, and his 
belief falsified. To all this he was fain to reply, and his controversial writings, which 
abound with strong common sense and keen irony, as well as logical argument, 
would make many large tomes of theological lore. As a pastor he was attentive to 
the wants of his people, and by his kind attentions in sickness and in sorrow he won 
their love, and quite early in life he passed among them as " Father Ballou.''^ 




HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 



WILLIAM LEWIS DAYTON was bom in the county ol Somerset, near 
Baskenridge, New Jersey, on the 17th of February, 1807. His great-grand- 
father, Jonathan Dayton, who was of English descent, settled at Elizabethtown, in 
Essex county, as early at least as 1725, and about the same time his mother's grand- 
father removed to Baskenridge, where he erected the first frame dwelling that was 
known in that section of the country. His ancestry, on both the father's and moth- 
er's side, took honorable part in the revolutionary struggle. 

Young Dayton was the eldest child of a numerous family, and after some ad- 
vances in the rudiments of an education under his native roof tree, at the age of twelve 
he was placed under the care of Dr. Brownlee, who was then a somewhat famous 
teacher of the young. Under his charge he was fitted for college. He entered the 
college at Princeton, and, after an honorable course, was graduated in the class of 
1825. So great was his ambition, and so diligently did he apply himself to his 
studies while he was in college, that, while he secured to himself considerable dis- 
tinction on the day of public exhibition, he came forth from his alma mater with a 
feeble frame, and health greatly impaired. 

After n «;hort period of relaxation, he entered the office of Governor Vroom, where 



726 HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

he prepared himself for the bar, to which he was admitted in 1830. Repairing to 
Monmouth county, he opened an office, where his urbanity and address, together 
with his irrepressible ardor and untiring application to the duties of his office, soon 
won for him a considerable degree of fame, and a large amount of business, as well 
as a host of friends. 

In 1837, Mr. Dayton was elected to a seat in the upper house of the New Jersey 
legislature ; and although only thirty years of age, he was at once placed in the very 
responsible office of chairman of the judiciary committee. While on this committee 
he brought before the house a bill embracing a thorough reorganization of the courts 
of his native state. The proposed alteration in the old code gave general satisfac- 
tion, and readily passed into a law, which has remained in force to this day. 

" At the close of the session of this legislature, Mr. Dayton was raised to the bench 
of the Supreme Court, and though one of the youngest, was yet one of the most 
eminent who had ever held that distinguished post. After three years of useful and 
honorable service in that station, he resigned his seat upon the bench, and returned 
to the practice of his profession, where his splendid abilities as an advocate soon 
placed him in the first rank of the New Jersey bar." 

The Hon. Samuel Lewis Southard, who had for some time presided over the 
deliberations of the Senate of the United States, died early in the summer of 1842, 
at Fredericksburg, Virginia. He was one of the senatorial delegates from New 
Jersey. Governor Pennington tendered to Mr. Dayton the vacant office, which he 
accepted, and took his seat on the 6th of July of the same year. On the meeting 
of the legislature in the following winter, he was elected to fill the unexpired term 
of Mr. Southard, and three years afterwards he was again chosen to a full term of 
six years. 

When he entered the Senate chamber, Judge Dayton was the youngest member 
of that body, being then barely thirty-five. But amidst the glare of those brilliant 
lights which shed so much glory on the deliberations of that body, the effijlgence of 
the youthful New Jersey senator was manifest. He at once took a commanding 
position among his compeers, and whenever he rose to address the Senate, he was 
received with the most marked respect. His course has been an open and frank one, 
and his eloquent address and manly bearing have secured to him the confidence of 
his political friends, and the friendship of his political enemies. 




HEV. WALTER COLTON, U.S.N. 



THIS fine scholar and elegant writer, the son of Walter and Thankful Colton, 
was born in Rutland, Vermont, May 9th, 1797. He was the third child in a 
family of twelve — ten sons and two daughters. In early childhood Walter exhibited 
some of those marked peculiarities which characterized him in after years — the same 
shrewdness of observation, a striking vein of originality, a genial humor and wit, a 
keen and quick appreciation of the ludicrous, a maturity of thought and expression 
beyond his years, conversational powers of a rare order, by which he charmed and 
fascinated every listener. 

At the age of seventeen he was sent to reside with an uncle in Hartford, Connecti- 
cut ; where, under the pastoral care of Rev. Dr. Strong, he made a public profession 
of religion. With a view to a preparation for the ministry, he entered the Hartford 
Grammar School, then under charge of Rev. Horace Hooker. 

In 1818, at the age of twenty-one, he entered Yale College. Here he ranlced 
respectably, and no more, as a student. In other respects, however, he stood confess- 
edly among the foremost of his class. While in college he wrote a drama for The 
Brothers in Unity — the literary society of which he was a member. At his gradua- 
tion from Yale in 1822, he pronounced the valedictory poem. 



730 REV. WALTER C O L T O N, U. S. N 

In 1822, he entered the Andover Theological Seminary. Here, in addition to the 
usual prescribed studies, he devoted much time to strictly literary pursuits, and the 
cultivation of a literary taste. Here he wrote a sacred drama, which was acted by 
the students ; and also a news carrier's address for a Boston paper, for which he 
gained a prize of two hundred dollars. Soon after leaving the seminary, he received 
the appointment of Professor of Moral Philosophy and Belles-Lettres in the Scien- 
tific and Military Academy at Middletown, Connecticut, under charge of Captain 
Alden Partridge. In 1830, Mr. Colton resigned his professorship, and at the solicitation 
of Jeremiah Evarts, Esq., and other friends, he assumed the editorship of The Ameri- 
can Spectator and Washington City Chronicle. While in Washington, Mr. Colton 
supplied for a time the pulpit of the church where General Jackson attended worship. 
Notwithstanding the contrariety between the parties in politics, the president, aware 
of Mr. Colton's infirm state of health, soon appointed him to a chaplaincy in the 
navy. In 1831, he assumed the duties of this office, and sailed in the United States 
ship Vincennes for St. Thomas, Cuba, and Pensacola. 

In 1832, he was ordered to the Mediterranean in the United States frigate Con- 
stellation. Among the fruits of this cruise, he produced "Ship and Shore" — a 
classic and charming book of travels. He also published, some months later, " Land 
and Sea," together with " Notes on France and Italy." 

In 1835, Mr. Colton was assigned to the naval station at Charlestown, Massachu- 
setts. In 1837, he was appointed historiographer and chaplain to the South Sea 
Surveying and Exploring Expedition. But in view of the hardships of the voyage 
and his infirm state of health, he resigned this appointment. 

In 1838, he was assigned to the naval station at Philadelphia, where, with the 
consent of the department, he became editor of the Philadelphia North American. 
In 1844, he was elected anniversary poet for the literary societies of the Vermont 
University, at Burlington. 

In 1845, he was ordered to the Pacific, in the United States frigate Congress. The 
course, incidents, and issues of that voyage are given in the volumes of " Deck and 
Port" and "Three Years in California." Soon after his arrival in California, the 
United States flag was raised, and Mr. Colton was appointed alcalde, or chief judge 
— his jurisdiction extending some three hundred miles around. Subsequently he was 
elected to this office by the people of Monterey. He continued to dischage its duties, 
with marked ability, for three years, and by his skill and sterling uprightness in his 
official station, won universal respect and admiration. The fame he acquired as 
public administrator in California has become the property of the world. In addi- 
tion to the ordinary duties of his place, Mr. Colton established and edited the first 
neivspaper ever printed in California, The Californian, now published in San Fran- 
cisco, under the title of the Alta Califoriiian. He also built the fiist school house in 
California, and instituted the first trial by jury. In his letters to the New York 
Journal of Commerce and the Philadelphia North American, he made ihe first pvOlic 
announcement in the United States of the discovery of gold in California. In the 
volume of " Three Years in California " he has given the most graphic and truthful 
picture of California life and manners that we have seen. It is marked by all the 
ready wit and humor of the author — clothing matters of fact with all the charms of 
a romance. He returned to Philadelphia in 1849, and died in the following year. 




LOWELL MASON. 



LOWELL MASON was born in the town of Medfield, in the State of Massa- 
chusetts, on the 8th day of January, 1792. His parents intended him for a 
mercantile life; and to this his attention was accordingly directed. When quite 
young, he removed to Savannah, Georgia, where he resided for nearly twenty years. 
From childhood he exhibited much fondness and talent for music ; and most of his 
leisure time was devoted to its study and practice, rather as a diversion, and to gratify 
his ardent love for the art, than with a view of embracing it as a profession. As he 
advanced in years, his feelings and tastes became concentred in church music; and 
to this he devoted himself with great ardor and assiduity. Having charge of a 
choir in Savannah, and being unable to obtain a collection of church music which 
was even tolerably adapted to his wants, he set about compiling a book of the kind 
himself. Having finished his manuscript and obtained leave of absence from the bank 
in which he was then employed, he bent his steps to the north in quest of a publisher. 
Reaching Philadelphia, he offered to give the copyright to any house which would 
pubHsh the book and give him a few copies for his own use. No publisher would 
take it. He then went to Boston and made the same offer to the publishers of that 

59 



732 LOWELL xM A SON. 

city, who only laughed at him. Thus rebuffed, he was about returning to Savannah, 
when a gentleman of considerable musical knowledge, who had examined and been 
much pleased with the manuscript, exhibited it, with the author's permission, to the 
board of managers of the "Boston Handel and Haydn Society." On examination of 
the woi'k, the society was so pleased with it that they offered to publish it and give 
the young editor an interest in the copyright. The offer was accepted; and the book 
was published in the year 1822 as the " Boston Handel and Haydn Society Collec- 
tion." The work attained immense popularity, and run through some thirty-five 
editions. 

The great success which attended the publication of the " Boston Handel and 
Haydn Society Collection" decided the whole future course of Mr. Mason. In 
accordance with the expressed wishes of many of the leading citizens of Boston, he 
took up his residence in that city, and at once set vigorously to work in the cause of 
chvirch music. He was soon elected president of the "Handel and Haydn Society," 
which post he held for many years, when he resigned it. Soon after this resignation 
the "Boston Academy of Music" was founded, and Mr. Mason at once placed at its 
head as its professor — a position which he still occupies, though the academy has for 
a time ceased active operations. Besides laboring actively with these societies, Mr. 
Mason was constantly working to bring about great and beneficial musical results. 
He introduced into this country the Pestalozzian or inductive method of teaching 
music; he established music teachers' institutes; and, after years of unremitting exer- 
tion, he succeeded in having music introduced as one of the regular branches of edu- 
cation in the public schools of Boston. The effect of this last-named movement has 
been felt in every part of the country, and has resulted in the introduction of music 
as a regular branch of study in the schools of many of our large cities as well as 
smaller places, and each year increases the number. 

In 1852, Mr. Mason visited Europe, where he received marked and favorable atten- 
tion from the leading composers now living who had become acquainted with his 
career. In London he was invited, by distinguished educationists, to deliver lectures 
on psalaiody and on the inductive or Pestalozzian mode of teaching music. He 
complie^^ with this invitation, and delivered several courses of lectures to highly in- 
fluential audiences. These lectures attracted much attention, and were warmly 
eulogized by the London press ; many of them were published in full, and were 
widely circulated. 

Mr. Mason has edited over fifty musical works, some of which have had a sale 
greater than those of any other musical author living or dead. The " Handel and 
Haydn Society Collection," the " Boston Academy's Collection," and the " Carmina 
Sacra," have met with unprecedented success, the latter having reached a sale of 
nearly four hundred thousand copies. His last publication is " The Hallelujah," 
which is intended as the crowning work of his long and useful life. " The Hallelujah " 
contains the maturest musical flowerings of the author's rich and cultivated mind, 
and is unquestionably the most valuable and remarkable work of the kind ever issued. 
Although but recently published, it is already acknowledged as the leading collection 
of church music; and no choir library is considered complete without it. 

Mr, Mason undoubtedly stands in the foremost rank of American composers of 
psalmody, and is, in music, what Noah Webster is in lexicography. 




GENERAL T. B. PORTER. 



PETER B. PORTER was the son of a respectable farmer, and was Dorn in 
Salisbury, Connecticut, on the 14th of August, 1773. His father, resolving to 
give him an education, sent him early to the best schools in the neighborhood, where 
his active mind soon exhibited those signs of promise which the fond father had 
detected when he w^as yet a mere child. After being thoroughly prepared for his 
collegiate course, his father entered him at Yale College, in New Haven, at the early 
age of sixteen. His career in college was marked by great diligence and application. 
He won the esteem of his teachers and fellow-pupils, and was graduated with high 
honors. Having fixed upon the law as his profession, he at once entered himself a? 
a clerk in a neighboring law^ office, and pursued a thorough course of legal reading, 
by which he was eminently fitted to manage the difficult circumstances and un- 
ravel the knotty questions which usually fall to the lot of the disciples of Coke and 
Littleton. 

On concluding the terms of his clerkship to the satisfaction of his teacher, he 
opened an office in his native village, and very soon acquired such a degree of popu- 
larity as to be selected a candidate for a seat in Congress; and he was accordingly 



734 GENERAL P. B. PORTER. 

returned to the House of Representatives early in the present century. Here he 
exhibited such qualities as marked him for a leader, and he was placed on the 
committee of foreign relations, and was soon chosen chairman of that very important 
body This station he occupied from session to session until the opening of the war 
of 1812 with Great Britain. 

For a long time those moving spirits, the great pioneers of internal improvement, 
De Witt, Fulton, Van Rensselaer, and others of like spirit, — among whom was the 
subject of this notice, — had been moving their constituency and congress on this great 
subject ; and in 1811 Mr. Porter was placed on that noble committee, who made their 
first report to Congress in favor of a liberal appropriation for the building of canals 
and public roads. This was the incipient step in that march of internal improvement 
which has filled our country with these works of art and improvement, which have 
elevated our country to its present high and glorious standing, and which promises to 
make it the first among the nations of the earth. The members of this committee 
deserve to have their names handed down to posterity, as the sagacious seers who 
were able and had sufficient courage to penetrate the haze of party and apperceive the 
glorious elements of their country's greatness. Governeur Morris, Stephen Van Rens- 
selaer, De "Witt Clinton, Peter B. Porter, William North, Simeon De Witt, Thomas 
Eddy, Robert B. Livingston, and Robert Fulton, — these were the men who composed 
that committee, and among whom Mr. Porter was an active and efficient member. 

On the opening of the drama of the war of 1812, we find Mr. Porter, who had 
recently taken up his residence at Black Rock, then a frontier settlement in western 
New York, one of the foremost to engage in the approaching conflict. Rallying a 
band of hardy volunteers, he had the earliest taste of these bloody border conflicts, of 
which the region of his new home was the unhappy scene. He was made brigadier 
general of the New York and Pennsylvania volunteers, and rendered gallant service 
in all the fierce contests that marked the opening of the war on our western frontier. 
Both General Brown and General Gaines speak of him in their reports as "a brave, 
skilful, and gallant officer, manifesting a degree of vigilance and judgment in his 
preparatory arrangements, as well as military skill and courage in action, which show 
him to be worthy the confidence of his country and the brave volunteers who fought 
under him." In the battles of Cheppewa, Niagara, and Fort Erie he particularly 
distinguished himself; and for his chivalrous conduct in these, as well as other actions, 
Congress voted the thanks of the nation and a gold medal. 

At the close of the war General Porter retired to his estates, and was immediately 
returned to Congress. In 1816, he was appointed secretary of state for the State of 
New York, but declined the honor, preferring a seat in Congress. Near the close of 
his congressional term he was appointed one of the commissioners to run the bound- 
ary line between the Canadas and the United States. In 1817, he was an unsuc- 
cessful candidate for governor of the State of New York in opposition to De Witt 
Clinton. 

From '^he time General Porter first went to Congress until his last public service as 
acting secretary of war in the last year of Adams's administration in 1829, he was 
almost constantly engaged in public life, and his name is identified with nearly all the 
great measures of his adopted state and the nation. Hospitable and generous, and 
full of private virtues, he won all hearts, and died on the 20th of March, 1844, deeply 
regretted by a wide circle of acouaintance. 




TI 



GRACE GREELEY. 



THE name of Horace Greeley is widely known. His eccentricities, his untir- 
ing labors in the cause of moral reform in all its departments, his stern and un- 
compromising opposition to slavery, political chicanery, the misgovernment of the coun- 
try, and personal sin, have brought him into prominence before the American people as 
one of the greatest politico-philanthropic men of this age ; while his successful n>an- 
ag(,ment of a leading news journal has raised him to the head of the editorial fra- 
ternity in the country. Plain and awkward in his manners, mean in his attire, yet 
full of human sympathy, he shambles through the streets of his adopted city, attract- 
ing the wondering gaze of strangers, and commanding the unqualified respect of 
"all vvho know him." 

H KACE Greeley was born in Amherst, New Hampshire, on the 3d of February, 
1811 His parents were in humble circumstances, and obtained a livelihood by hard 
labor ui a farm, to which hard labor Horace was put as soon as he was placed in 
"jacket and trousers." Here he wrought until he was thirteen, having no other op- 
portunities for the acquisition of an education than such as the district school of his 
neighborhood afforded. He early manifested a love of reading, particularly newspapers, 



786 HORACE GREELEY. 

which he would devour with the greatest relish, and which decided him to become a 
printer, whenever the time should come to choose an occupation for himself. 

In 1824-25, the elder Greeley removed to Vermont, and Horace, in accordance 
with his long-cherished purpose, applied to a printer in Whitehall without success. 
Nothing daunted by this first rebuff — for he ^vas made of sterner stuff than to bend 
before the first puff of ill success — he offered his services to a printer in Poultney, 
Vermont, where "The Northern Spectator" was published. Here he was installed as 
youngest apprentice, and here he faithfully served out his indentures. In 1830 the 
paper was discontinued, and he returned to his father's farm, where he labored a year, 
when he started "with his worldly gear, tied up in a pocket handkerchief and slung 
from his shoulder on his walking-stick," for the great metropolis of the western world. 

An'ived in New York, Mr. Greeley found it difficult to obtain employment at his 
craft, so unprepossessing was his exterior. But after persevering efforts he got a job 
in a newspaper office, and for the next year and a half found employment in various 
offices. About this time, in connection with Jonas Winchester, he started and edited 
a weekly paper called " The New Yorker." This was kept up for several years, to 
the detriment of the pockets of the publishers, when it was discontinued. During 
this time he published several political campaign papers : viz., " The Constitution ; " 
" The Jeffersonian," and " The Log Cabin." The politics of these papers were de- 
cidedly whig, and exerted considerable influence on the canvass at the time pending. 

In 1841, Mr. Greeley commenced the publication of " The New York Tribune," 
with which he is still connected, and of which he has been the principal editor. Of 
" The Tribune " it needs not to speak. It has risen by its own merits lo be one of the 
raciest, spiciest, most readable, truf^tworthy, and interesting journals of the day, and 
no other paper exerts a deeper or wider influence upon the politics of our nation or 
the destinies of the country. 

In 1848, Mr. Greeley was chosen to fill a vacancy in the thirtieth congress, and 
served through the short term with manifest skill. In 1851, he was chosen a delegate 
to represent our country at the " World's Fair," about to be held at London. At 
this fair he was elected chairman of one of the juries, and rendered effective service. 
While abroad he travelled somewhat extensively, and published an account of his 
travels in a series of letters to " The Tribune," and which were afterwards given tr 
the world in the form of a very readable book. He has also published a volume en- 
titled " Hints towards Reforms," containing several addresses before reformatory 
societies and essays on the various subjects of reform. 

Mr. Greeley wields a fearless and vigorous pen, and when he holds up to view the 
"mistakes of the day or the mistakers," they are sure to be "scarred to the bone," 
He never seeks controversy with any one ; but woe to the luckless wight who pr'^- 
vokes the heavy vengeance of his rebukes, or the scathing irony of his pen. Bn* 
with all the bitterness of his chastisements, there beats in no man's bosom a truer or 
kinder heart. He is every inch a philanthropist, and the true friend of sufferiivg 
humanity. 




HIRAM POWERS. 



HIRAM POWERS, the great living American sculptor, and who has won the 
admiration of the world by his exquisite productions in marble, was born in 
Woodstock, Vermont, on the 29th day of July, 1805. He was the youngest but one 
of a large family of children. His father was a farmer, and young Powers had no 
other early education than such as was to be had in the district schools of that time, 
which were far from the best. But he had that within his breast which enabled him 
to draw knowledge from every thing around him. He found " sermons in stones and 
good in every thing ; " and the wild and beautiful scenery of the Otta Queechy Val- 
ley, where he resided, and the workshops of the humble artisans of the neighborhood, 
afforded nutriment to his poetic nature and materiel for the manipulation of his un- 
practised hands. He was also enabled to gain some slight instruction in the art of 
drawing, to which he took with great ardor, and in which study he made considerable 
proficiency. 

While yet a child, the father of young Powers removed to the far west, and set 
himself down on the fertile banks of the Ohio, where he soon after fell a victim to 
the fatal malaria, leaving his family in destitute circumstances. Feeling that now it 



738 H I R A M P O W E R S . 

was time to seek the means of a livelihood, he bade adieu to home and turned his 
steps towards the " Queen City," Cincinnati, in hopes that fortune would throw some- 
thing in his way out of which he might be able to carve his own fortune. After 
many failures, he took charge of the reading room of one of the principal hotels of 
that city. His next occupation was that of clerk in a produce store, where he re- 
mained until the business was given up on the death of one of the principals. From 
the provision business he entered the employment of a clockmaker, where his busi- 
ness was to collect bills, take care of the shop, and do all sorts of small work. 

It was while in the employment of the clockmaker that Powers made the acquaint- 
ance of a Prussian sculptor, who was at the time engaged on a bust of General Jack- 
son. This introduction seems to have developed the idea of his life. To become 
an artist was now the first wish of his soul, and soon became the great purpose of 
his being. Being generously furnished by this foreigner with a small amount of raw 
material and the necessary tools, together with a few simple lessons in the art, he set 
himself hopefully and laboriously to work in his new vocation, little dreaming of the 
figure he was to make in the world. With energies cramped by the contractedness 
of his means, he became the artist of a museum in Cincinnati, and took the over- 
sight of the gallery of wax figures, which department he faithfully superintended for 
The space of seven years, when, determined to make greater effort to become more 
competent in his art, he wcjit to Washington to seek employment and instruction. 

It was in 1835 that Mr. Powers went to the national capital, his bosom burning 
with a strong desire to visit Italy, and there to study the works of the great masters ; 
and " Heaven soon granted what his (means) denied." Here he was introduced 
to a benevolent gentleman of wealth, who, discovering the genius of Powers, deter- 
mined to afford him the means of its development. Furnishing him with the neces- 
sary funds and letters, he was not long in embarking for Florence, where, with a 
heart palpitating with mingled hope and fear, he landed in the summer of 1837. 
Here he set himself to work in good earnest, and, after completing several models of 
^sts, executed his model of " Eve" in plaster. It was at this point that the great mas- 
*-"-Thur\valdsen, made his studio a visit, and paid him many compliments on his 

^. Mr. Powers apologized for his "Eve" as the Jirst of his productions. The great 
rtist assured him that " any man might be proud of it as his /a.s^." 

From this moment Mr. Powers has risen step by step in rapid progress in his 
profession, until he now stands among the highest, and his name is an honor to his 
country and the world. His principal productions are, " Eve," " The Greek Slave," 
•' The Fisher Boy," " Proserpine," and many busts of distinguished men of his own 
country — " Webster," " Calhoun," "Jackson," " Marshall," and many others. 

The last great effort of Mr. Powers is his heroic statue of " America," and to which 
he is giving the finishing touches. The conception of his subject is a noble one, and 
its execution will beget him greater honor than any other previous production of his 
facile chisel, although we may be permitted to hope that even this will be eclipsed 
by the future efforts of his untiring genius, as he has but just reached the full matu- 
rity of his manhood, being not quite fifty years of age. 




CHAELES GOODYEAR. 



FEW inventions have done more to increase human comfort than the projess 
which caoutchouc, or India-rubber, is kept, in a perfectly pHable and ooft cond. 
tion, amid all the changes of the atmosphere. It is within the memory of many now 
Jiving, that India-rubber was used only to erase pencil marks from paper. It was a 
happy conceit that sought to mould the liquid rubber into articles of clothing for the 
protection of the human body. The rude shoes first made over lasts of v'^lay, so stiff 
and hard when exposed to a temperature below the freezing point that human power 
could produce scarcely no effect upon them, were thought to be a great achievement. 
It was at once seen that if caoutchouc could only be made perfectly, or even partially 
pliable, like cloth, a great desideratum would be gained, and human comfort greatly 
increased. To bring this about, chemists were consulted, and much labor, time, and 
money were expended. Men of ingenious minds entered into competition with the 
chemists, and partially favorable results succeeded. 

In 1834, Charles Goodyear entered into the business of manufacturing gum 
elastic at New York, and became a promising competitor for the honor of the 
much hoped for discovery, throwing himself and all that he had into the contest. 

60 



740 CHARLES GOODYEAR. 

Experiment followed experiment only to produce disappointment. Money, time, health, 
and all were wasted in the vain attempt, yet the stout heart of Mr. Goodyear never 
fainted. Disappointment only stimulated to further trial. His money was all gone, 
and credit soon followed. Then came lawsuits, duns, executions, sheriffs, and the 
sharp tooth of poverty. But nothing could daunt his invincible spirit, his indomita- 
ble courage. Driven from pillar to post, and hunted from one place to another — 
in every place plying himself with untiring courage to this one great point of his 
existence — from New Haven to New York in the spring of 1835 ; thence back to 
New Haven in the summer of 1836 ; thence in 1837 to Staten Island ; in the autumn 
of the same year to Roxbury ; and the very next to Woburn, where he met Mr. 
Hay ward, who had already obtained a patent for his " Sulphur Invention." This 
patent he bought, and hired Mr. Hayward to assist him. Prosecuting his inquiries 
with a vigilance few men have ever manifested, fully believing that he should, at 
some period, realize his expectations, he was, at length, in January, 1839, repaid for 
all his toil, expense, sickness of heart, and bodily sufferings, by the discovery of the 
process he so long had sought. Mr. Goodyear continued his experiments at Woburn 
and various other places until 1844, when he obtained his great patent; at which time 
he was residing at Springfield, Massachusetts. Soon after this he went to Nauga- 
tuck, Connecticut, and started a factory for the manufacture of those beautiful arti- 
cles, now so necessary to every one's wardrobe, and so serviceable to every one who 
is exposed to the " pitiless peltings of the storm." Besides this it is WTOught into 
thousands of articles of luxury, convenience, and ornament. 

Up to this period, Mr. Goodyear passed through such scenes of hardship and suf- 
fering, from his extreme poverty, as few men have before in the accomplishment of a 
darling object. " It would be painful to speak," says Mr. Webster, in his great plea 
in behalf of this indefatigable man, "of his extreme want — the destitution of his 
family, half clad, he picking up with his own hands little billets of wood from the 
wayside to warm the household — suffering reproach — not harsh reproach, for no 
ij^ne could bestow that upon him — receiving indignation and ridicule from his friends." 

4iS ^n evidence of the perfect cheerfulness with which Mr. Goodyear met his hard 
fortune, v'e will insert here a letter written to a friend on business, from a cell in the 
jail at BostOi^, 

Debtofs Prison, April 21, 1840. 

Gentlemen r I have the pleasure to invite you to call and see me at my lodgings, 
on matters ci business, and to communicate with my family, and possibly to estab- 
lish an India-rubber Factory for myself, on the spot. Do not fail to call on the 
receipt of this, as I feel some anxiety on account of my family. My father will 
probably arrange my affairs in relation to this hotel, which, after all, is perhaps as 
good a resting-place as any this side the grave. Yours truly, 

Charles Goodyear. 

Charles Goodyear is a native of the city of New Haven, in the state of Connecti- 
cut, and was born in the year 1799. He is now in the full prime of life, and has al- 
ready won a fame, throughout the world, equal to his deserts. 




REV. ELIPHALET NOTT, D. D., LL. D. 



THIS venerable and beloved man, who for the last half century has presided over 
the interests of Union College, in the state of New^ York, was of humble parent- 
age, and was born in Ashford, Connecticut, in June, 1773. While he was a mere 
child he lost both his parents, and went to live with an elder brother, who was pastor 
of a church at Franklin in the same state. As he grew up he manifested a strong 
taste for learning. This taste was fostered and encouraged by his brother, so that at 
an early age he became master of the Greek and Latin tongues, together with a fair 
knowledge of mathematics. As soon as he was old enough, that he might not be- 
come too heavy a burden upon his brother, he taught school during the winter in the 
neighboring districts, and thus contributed something towards his own support. 

In 1789, young Nott became a member of the sophomore class of Brown Univer- 
sity, from which institution he was graduated with his bachelor's degree in 1792, having 
nearly defrayed the expenses of his education by school teaching during the vacations. 
His religious impressions seem to have commenced very early in life, and while in col- 
lege he determined to devote himself to the important work of the ministry. Ac- 
cordingly, on leaving his university, he set about preparing himself for his great 



742 REV. ELIPHALETNOTT, D. D., LL. D. 

mission. While studying his profession he still taught school, thus supporting him- 
self and procuring for future use a small but choice collection of religious booUs. 

At the age of twenty-two, Mr. Nott received a license to preach, and commenced 
his labors at Cherry Valley, in the double capacity of minister and teacher of the 
academy in that place. He soon found himself surrounded by a large number of 
pupils, with whom he was remarkably successful. In 1796, he was invited to take 
charge of the first presbyterian church and society in Albany. Thither, accordingly, 
he removed the same year, and assumed the duties of the pastorate to which he 
had been invited. Here he labored with great success until 1804, when he was 
called to the presidency of Union College, where he has remained during the revolu- 
tion of a half century. During the summer of the present year this venerable prel- 
ate resigned his office into other hands, the circumstance of which was made a 
happy occasion to himself and his numerous pupils and friends. 

The history of Dr. Nott from 1804 is only the history of the college, which owes 
all it ever had of greatness and prosperity to the untiring energy and devotion of 
this good man. When he assumed the direction of its affairs, it was indeed "a 
very little one," — it was a college only in name. A mere handful of students, a 
few unfinished buildings, standing on a rude uncultivated piece of ground, comprised 
its entire endowments. With no library or philosophical apparatus, and not one dol- 
lar in its treasury^ '' > aay nothing of overhanging debts, this courageous man entered 
with alacrity upon the almost hopeless task of " creating a soul beneath these ribs of 
death." With an energy which no obstacles or discouragements could overcome, he 
commenced his work, procured grants of land from the state, collected libraries, 
finished the buildings already commenced and built new ones, procured apparatus, 
endowed professorships, created a fund, and caused every branch of the college to 
blossom with hope ; and lived long enough to reap a rich harvest from the seed he 
sowed in this day of small things, and to see his own college take a stand in no way 
inferior to other institutions of a like character throughout the land. 

In the midst of his arduous duties, Dr. Nott has found time to gratify an inventive 
and mechanical genius, and " Nott's stoves" are among the earliest inventions for 
heating rooms and economizing fuel, while his treatises on caloric and its uses are 
among the most philosophical that can be met with. 

As a preacher, Dr. Nott occupies a very high stand for eloquence, clearness, 
strength, and fervor, and his sermons generally produce a great impression. In his 
social life he is remarkable, and his conversational talent is superior to that of most 
men. 




MRS. ANNA C. M. RITCHIE. 



ANNA CORA MOWATT RITCHIE was the tenth child of a highly re- 
spectable and wealthy merchant of the city of New York, by the name of 
Ogden. Having lost his fortune, with many others, by embarking in the foolish expe- 
dition of Miranda, he removed to France soon after in the hope of retrieving his ill 
luck. It was while a resident of France that Anna Cora was born. She early gave 
indications of a remarkable histrionic talent, and before she was four years of age she 
used to join in little theatrical divertisements with her elder sisters. When she was 
about six years old her father returned once more to New York, he having acquired a 
sufficiency for the maintenance and education of his family. She does not appear to 
have lost her taste for " playing plays," as the children called it, when she quitted the 
shores of the volatile and versatile French ; but it grew into a passion. When she 
was twelve she became an insatiate reader, and devoured with wonderful rapidity 
every book that fell in her way. 

When less than fourteen. Miss Ogden first saw her future husband, Mr. Mowatt, 
an eminent lawyer of New York, and under the most curious circumstances. Mr. 
Mowatt met the family at some watering-place, and becoming enamoiA-ed of a 



744 MRS.ANNAC. M. RITCHIE. 

married daughter, made a declaration of his love, not knowing that she was irrevoca- 
bly united to another. Receiving it in a pleasant way, she told him that she had a 
sister at home much prettier than she, and more capable of making him happy. It 
was not Anna, the child, to whom she alluded, but an elder sister. But on visiting 
the house for the purpose of being introduced to the sister at home, he accidentally 
caught sight of the romping child. Struck with her wild and romantic beauty, in due 
time, he made love to her, and at length succeeded in winning her to his heart; meet- 
ing with considerable opposition in their love, they were clandestinely married, 

Mr. Mowatt owned a beautiful retreat, on Long Island, about four miles from the 
city, and thither the youthful bride was borne amidst all the tender and beautiful 
attentions which love could suggest or wealth supply. For two or three years she 
passed her life in arduous study, enlivened by the most refined society, which she 
was so well calculated to adorn. Her health failing her, on the advice of her friends 
she made a voyage to Europe. While in Paris she wrote a play in five acts, called 
" Gulzare, or the Persian Slave," which was subsequently put to the press. After 
an absence of eighteen months, she returned to her beautiful home on Long Island, 
only to be driven forth from it forever, by one of those reverses which often reduce 
the opulent to beggary. 

These misfortunes seem to have endued the young wife with a divine heroism, 
and she determined to make those talents which had hitherto been only devoted to 
her own and the amusement of her friends, subservient to necessity. IVIi-. JMowatt, 
through an infirmity of sight, became utterly incapabl of contributing to the sup- 
port of the family; and his brave-hearted wife, defying the nialignant whisperings of 
her soi-disarit friends, commenced a course of dramatic readings, which proved emi- 
nently successful, and ultimately led to her appearing upon the stage. Her severe 
application, however, caused her health to give way, and for two years she was una- 
ble to do any thing. 

About this time, Mr. Mowatt becoming a partner in a publishing house in New 
York, his wife became a writer of versatile articles under the cognomen of 
" Helen Berkley." These articles acquired such popularity that she at length re- 
sumed her own name. But prosperity only dawned upon them, and an early day 
found them once more bankrupt. It was in this emergency that she turned her at- 
tention to dramatic writings. Her first production was ^. comedy entitled " Fashion," 
and was produced in 1845. It was brought out with much splendor at the Park 
theatre, New York, and met with brilliant success. Soon after this she was tempted 
by a brilliant offer from the manager of the Park theatre to engage as an actress on 
those boards. Her success was sudden and complete, and a succession of profitable 
engagements in most of the principal theatres of the Union placed her once more in 
comfort and elegant ease. In 1847, Mrs. Mowatt made her debut in the old world, 
where she soon attained the rank of a star, and made the circuit of the foreign cities, 
creating every where the strongest impressions. From this time down to 1852, she 
has followed her profession with eminent success, both in the old and the new world -, 
and won golden opinions from even the severest critics of the stage. 

In 1851 Mrs. Mowatt lost her husband, while they were in London; and during 
the last year she has become the wife of William F. Ritchie, Esq., the son of the V( ii- 
f rable editor for so many years of the " Richmond Enquirer." 




THOMAS COLE. 



THOMAS COLE, an American painter of considerable celebrity, was born in 
Lancashire, England, on the 1st of February, 1801. When eight years old, he 
'■^"as sent to school at Chester, where he seems to have shared the lot of poor David 
Copperfield at the literary institution of Salem House, under supervision of master 
Creakle. He began the business of life by engraving designs for a calico printer in 
the neighborhood. His situation and companions were uncongenial, and he was 
often driven forth into the fields to commune with Nature, and to solace his soul with 
his flute. Fond of reading books of travel, one descriptive of American scenery so 
fired his spirit wilh a desire to behold the new world that he prevailed upon his father 
to emigrate thither, which he did in the spring of 1819, and, landing at Philadelphia, 
he opened a small dry goods shop, and commenced business as a petty trader. But 
Thomas, not liking the employment, soon procured business in his old line, and, 
bringing his blocks home, engraved them in his father's house. 

Not being satisfied with his business in Philadelphia, the elder Cole removed to 
Steu^benville, Ohio, leaving our incipient artist behind, who, after a year or two, — 
having meanwhile made a voyage to St. Eustatia, in company with another young 



746 THOMAS COLE. 

man, for the benefit of their health, — sought out his home, making his way to Steu- 
benville on foot. He remained with his father about two years, assisting him occa- 
sionally in his business, when an itinerant portrait painter visited the village. With 
him he became acquainted ; his enthusiasm was excited, and he determined to be- 
come an artist himself. Manufacturing his own palette, easel, canvas, and brushes, 
and procuring paint from a chairmaker in the village, he commenced " on his father, 
a friend of the family, and a little girl, all of whom were pronounced ' like.' " 

In 1822, Mr. Cole started on foot, with all his worldly gear and implements of 
Irade in an old green baize bag, for St. Clairsville, and from thence to Zanesville and 
Chillicothe, in each of which places he had little work and hard fare, leaving the lat- 
ter place for Pittsburg, whither his family had meanwhile arrived, in a destitute con- 
dition. He remained at home but a short time, when, turning his back forever on 
the west, he started for Philadelphia, with one small trunk and a purse of six dollars, 
being protected from the cold by a table cover in lieu of a great-coat, which his 
mother had abstracted from one of the tables at home. Arrived, after great suffer- 
ing, at the Quaker City, he procured lodgings in one of the humblest quarters of the 
town, in a low attic, which boasted of no other luxuries than a rickety bed and a 
broken chair. Here his table cover rendered the double service of cloak by day and 
counterpane by night. But he kept up his spirits with the music from " that dear 
old flute," and the warmth of his body by threshing it with his arms and stamping 
up and down the small court in which the tenement stood which contained his studio. 

By great diligence, Mr. Cole was enabled to sustain himself in Philadelphia until 
the year 1825, when he removed to New York, where he became acquainted with 
those who appreciated his artistic talent and modest worth, and by whom he was 
introduced to many patrons and friends. He exhibited his first picture — a land- 
scape — at the " National Academy of Design " in the spring of 1826. From this 
time he had as much profitable labor as he desired, until June, 1829, when he sailed 
for London. Here he remained for two years, studying and painting, when he went 
over to Paris, whence he departed in a short time for Florence, via Genoa and 
Leghorn. 

In February, 1832, Mr. Cole left Florence for the Eternal City, travelling thither 
on foot, and taking sketches by the way. From Rome he proceeded to Naples, after 
a three months' study of the gi-eat masters, and conceiving some of his great works. 
After a short residence in this latter place, he returned to Florence, having " sur- 
prised the easy and lazy Italians " with his great diligence. At the close of this year, 
news having reached him of the ravages of the cholera in New York and the illness 
of his parents, he hastened home, and after spending two or three years in the city, 
he married and removed to Catskill. 

In 1841, his health failing, Mr. Cole once more embarked for Europe, and passing 
through London, Paris, and Lyons, to the Lake of Geneva, he reached Rome the 
same autumn. The next spring he visited Sicily, and returned to New York in No- 
vember, 1842. Here he labored with his usual diligence until February 11, 1848, 
when he peacefully fell asleep in the forty-eighth year of his age. 

The number of allegories, landscapes, compositions, and other pieces left by Mr. 
Cole — for the enumeration of which we have no room — shows him to have been a 
diligent and rapid painter, while they exhibit no small artistic merit. 




MAJOR GENERAL RIPLEY. 



ELEAZAU WHEELOCK RIPLEY, son of Rev. Sylvanus Ripley, a professor 
of divinity in Dartmouth College, was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, in the 
year 1782. He was grandson to Rev. Eleazar Wheelock, the founder of the college, 
and bore his name. He was also lineally descended from the celebrated Pilgrim 
captain, Miles Standish. His father, dying early, left a large family to the care of 
his widow, a woman every way calculated for the responsible task to which Provi- 
dence appointed her. Eleazar entered Dartmouth College at the age of fourteen, and 
was graduated in course in 1800, with the highest honors of the college. 

After studying law in Waterville, District of Maine, he opened an office in Winsiow, 
of the same state, and practised his profession with great success. Early becoming 
interested in the politics of his adopted district, he was elected to a seat in the Massachu- 
setts House of Representatives in 1807. Being annually elected to the same office, in 
1811 he was chosen to preside over that body, which he did with distinguished ability. 

When, in 1812, war was declared by the United States against Great Britain, in 
looking for suitable men to lead our raw recruits to battle, our government judiciously 
selected the subject of this memoir, and conferring on him a lieutenant colonel's 



750 MAJOR GENERAL RIPLEY. 

commission, he was intrusted with the care of the district- included between Saco, in 
the then district of Maine, and our extreme eastern frontier. He soon raised a regi- 
ment, which was ordered to join the brave General Pike, who lay encamped with a 
small army at Plattsburg. When winter set in he took np his quarters in Burling- 
ton, Vermont, where he devoted himself to the care and discipline of his troops in so 
faithful a manner as to gain for his regiment the title of " the crack regiment." 

Early in the opening spring. Colonel Ripley marched to rejoin General Pike at 
Sacketts Harbor, and with him united in the attack on York, Canada, and which re- 
sulted in the death of that gallant general, in the blowing up of the forts of the enemy 
by their own hand. Colonel Ripley narrowly escaped the same awful fate. Badly 
wounded as he was, he collected the scattered forces, and successfully charged the 
foe, and compelled him to surrender. After a year spent in various movements, and 
the perfection of his troops, he went once more into winter quarters at Sacketts 
Harbor. 

In the spring of 1814, being advanced to the post of brigadier general, our hero 
joined the army under General Brown, and bore a conspicuous part, in conjunction 
with General Scott, in that glorious campaign, in which were fought the successful 
battles of Niagara, Chippewa, and Erie. In the sortie from Fort Erie, he was se- 
verely wounded in the neck. He had borne a heavy share in the awful duties of 
that valiant sortie, and was carried from the field amidst the shouts of victory. The 
next day he was taken to the American side of the river, where he lay in a most critical 
and painful condition for nearly three months. Long was his life suspended on the 
merest thread; but his excellent constitution and the best medical treatment, under 
the blessing of Providence, carried him safely through all his dangers, and he was 
at length restored to health. For the brilliant services rendered in this campaign he 
was voted the thanks of the nation, and a splendid medal of gold was struck off by 
the order of congress, commemorative of the battles of Niagara, Chippewa, and 
Erie, in which he took so active and glorious a part. 

At the close of the war the army was reduced, but General Ripley was retained 
with the title of major-general. In 1816 he removed to his estate in Baton Rouge, 
Mississippi, where he spent the remainder of his life. He was elected to various 
offices while a resident of the south, and served one term in the lower house of the 
congress of the United States. He made many friends in the new place of his resi- 
dence, and died in 1834, deeply lamented by a large circle, who had learned to respect 
and love him for his many estimable qualities. 




JOHN C. WARREN, M. D. 



THIS eminent surgeon and physician, who for so long a period has stood at the 
head of his profession in the United States, was born in the city of Boston in 
1778. His family was among the earliest settlers of Boston, and embraced a large 
number of men eminent in the use of the scalpel. He is also the nephew of Dr. Joseph 
Warren, the martyr of Bunker Hill. Having received his preliminary education at 
the Boston Public Latin School, where he obtained the first Franklin Medal, (a dis- 
tribution made, according to the will of Franklin, to meritorious scholars,) he entered 
Harvard University, from which he graduated in 1797. After going through a regu- 
lar course of medical study in Boston, he visited Europe that he might prepare him- 
self for the more perfect discharge of the duties of his profession, and became a 
student at Guy's Hospital, under the tutelage of the Coopers, and where, also, he 
had the advantage of listening to Clive, Aberneth}'^, Home, and other eminent men 
in England. He also had the pleasure of listening to Gregory, the Munroes, Dun- 
can, and the Bells, in Edinboro', as well as Chapier, Dubois, Cuvier, and Desfon- 
taine, in Paris. 

In 1802, Dr. Warren returned once more to his native city, and entered at once 



752 DR. J. C. WARREN. 

into a full and successful practice of surgery and materia medica. The following 
year he married the daughter of Hon. Jeremiah Mason, then senator in congress, 
with whom he lived in happiness for the space of nearly forty years. Jn 1806, he 
was chosen recording secretary of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and the same 
year was appointed adjunct professor of anatomy as colleague with his father. Dr. 
John Warren. 

In 1809, the first regular course of anatomical lectures was delivered in Boston, 
and Dr. Warren presided at the first public dissection in a small room in Marlboro', 
now Washington Street. Strenuous efforts were made about this time for the erec- 
tion of a public hospital, and many of the merchant princes of the city made large 
contributions to that end. In 1821, the " Massachusetts General Hospital " was 
opened on Allen Street, Boston, and Dr. Warren was appointed surgeon to the hos- 
pital, and Dr. Jackson physician. The people of Boston had also built a large 
hospital in Charlestown, now Somerville, for the use of the insane, and called it the 
" McLean Asylum," over which Dr. Rufus Wyman was appointed to preside, as 
superintendent and physician. 

In 1815, occurred the death of Dr. John Warren, then president of the Massachu- 
setts Medical Society, and Dr. J. C. Warren was chosen professor of anatomy and 
surgery, lecturing at the same time on midwifery and physiology. In the same 
year, 1815, was erected in Boston the Massachusetts Medical College, a substantial 
brick edifice belonging to Harvard University, the funds for which were chiefly pro- 
cured by the appeals of Drs. Jackson and Warren. 

In 1827, Dr. Warren was chosen president of the Massachusetts Temperance So- 
ciety, a situation which he still continues to hold after the lapse of twenty-seven 
years. In 1832, he was chosen president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and 
resigned his office in 1834. 

In 1837, Dr. Warren made a visit to Europe, and on his return the year following, 
resumed his lectures on surgery and anatomy. In 1841, he lost his wife, and, in 
1843, was again married, the bride this time being Anna, daughter of Governor 
Thomas L. Winthrop. She died in 1850. 

In 1846, Dr. Warren performed the first surgical operation with ether. In 1847 
he was chosen president of the Boston' Society of Natural History, an office which 
he continues to fill with unabated interest. In the same year, being then nearly 
seventy years old, he resigned the office of professor of anatomy and surgery, and 
soon after presented his Anatomical Museum (the acquisition of half a century, 
and supposed to be worth at least ten thousand dollars) to Harvard University, for the 
benefit of the Medical School, with the sum of five thousand dollars to keep it in order. 

As president of the American Medical Association for the year 1849-50, he deliv- 
ered the Annual Address before that body, at their meeting in Cincinnati, in May, 1850. 

In January, 1853, he resigned the office of surgeon to the Massachusetts General 
Hospital; whereon the trustees of that institution presented him a vote of thanks, 
and placed his bust in their hall. 

Besides the duties of his profession. Dr. Warren has made large acquisitions in 
natural history, and enters with the enthusiasm of a young man into all the transac- 
tions of the society, of which he still remains president. He has also given to the 
world many valuable papers, pamphlets, and books, upon the various subjects which 
have occupied his enlarged mind for more than half a century. 




REV. S. H. TYNG, D. D. " 

STEPHEN HIGGINSON TYNG, the present popular rector of St. George's 
Church, in New York city, was born in the town of Newburyport, in Mas- 
sachusetts, on the 1st day of March, 1800. Early exhibiting a strong love for 
learning, the best means were afforded him by his father for acquiring an education. 
He made such faithful use of these means, that at the age of thirteen he was pro- 
nounced by his teachers to be prepared for college, and he was accordingly entered 
as a freshman in the university at Cambridge, in the year 1813. Here he went 
through the regular course of study, and at the end of four years, was graduated in 
1817, with a high standing. 

On leaving college, Mr. Tyng found himself called on to decide on a profession. 
The law, medicine, and theology were all and each repugnant to his tastes, and he 
accordingly embarked in the mercantile business. But he soon found that no busi- 
ness or profession is free from objections, and after two years' experience of the mer- 
cantile life, he made up his mind to abandon it forever, and gave himself to the 
preparation necessary to fit him to take holy orders, commencing and completing his 
theological studies under the supervision of the venerable bishop Griswold, then 



754 ^ REV. S. H. TYNG, D. D. 

filling the see of Rhode Island, and residing in the beautiful village of Bristol, in 
that state. 

On the 4th day of March, 1821, Mr. Tyng was ordained to the office of deacon, 
by his friend, the bishop, and in May of the same year, assumed the charge of St. 
John's Church, at Washington city, in the District of Columbia. After laboring in 
this place for the space of two years, during which time he formed many valuable 
acquaintances, some of which he has cherished through life, he removed to Queen 
Ann's parish. Prince George's county, Maryland, of which he became rector and was 
ordained as priest. Here he devoted himself with great zeal to the duties of his sacred 
calling, enlarging his knowledge of biblical truth, and growing rapidly into that high 
reputation as a minister of Christ, of which he is now in the high enjoyment. 

After laboring for six years with his flock of Queen Ann's parish, Mr. Tyng, in 
1829, was called to assume the duties of the rectorship of St. Paul's Church, in the 
city of Philadelphia. It was while rector of this church that Jefferson College con- 
ferred on him the degree of doctor of divinity. But he does not seem to have found 
his resting-place; for he left St. Paul's Church, and accepted the rectorship of the 
Church of the Epiphany, of the same city, where he remained nearly eight years. 

In 1844, St. George's Church, in the city of New York, lost its venerable and ac- 
complished rector. Rev. Dr. Milnor, and Dr. Tyng was called by that church the fol- 
lowing year to fill the vacancy occasioned by his decease. He still occupies the 
pulpit of this parish, beloved by his flock and respected by all classes of people in the 
city where he dwells. He confines not his labors to the narrow circle of his parish, 
but engages in all those benevolent and literary plans which aim at the improvement 
of the lower and middle classes of his adopted city. He is likewise called to lec- 
ture on popular topics in the neighboring cities and throughout the nation. 

Besides these manifold duties. Dr. Tyng has written and published several works 
of merit, principally upon subjects pertaining to his profession, and we believe has 
borne a prominent part in the discussion of the catholic question, which has so 
fiercely agitated the state of New York and the country in these latter years. He 
holds a fluent pen, and writes with considerable elegance. As a popular public 
speaker he ranks among the first, and is sure to command a full house whenever his 
name is announced as a lecturer upon any of the topics, literary, scientific, religiouSj 
or merely popular, engaging the public attention. 




LIEUTENANT COLONEL CROGHAN. 



GEORGE CROGHAN was the son of Major William Croghan, a native of 
Ireland, who emigrated to this country about the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, and who engaged in our revolutionary contest with all the ardor of his country- 
men. He married into one of the most respectable families of Virginia, and soon 
after moved to Locust Grove, Kentucky, near the Falls of the Ohio River, where, on 
the 15th of November, 1791, George was born. Having received his rudimentary 
education in the best schools his native state afforded, in his seventeenth year he was 
matriculated at William and Mary College, in Virginia, from which institution he 
was graduated in the summer of 1810. 

On leaving college, Mr. Croghan entered the law school connected with that insti- 
tution, where he remained somewhat over one year, when he enlisted as a private in 
the expedition led by General Harrison against the Indians. Just previous to the 
battle of Tippecanoe, he was appointed aid-de-camp to General Boyd, and through- 
out the whole bloody campaign of the Wabash, so signalized himself as to receive 
the thanks of his superior officer, and a recommendation to Congress. On the open- 
ing of the war, in 1812, he was appointed captain in the army, raised and organized 

62 



756 LIEUTENANT COLONEL CROGHAN. 

in the spring of that year. In the month of August he marched under General 
Winchester to relieve General Hull, in Canada, and was with that unfortunate army 
until its capitulation. 

After the defeat at the River Raisin, Captain Croghan joined General Harrison 
at the Rapids, previous to the erection of Fort Meigs, and rendered very efficient 
service in the memorable siege of that fortress. In the sortie which followed, such 
was the gallantry of his conduct that he was spoken of in general orders in highly 
commendatory terms. He was shortly after appointed to the command of Fort 
Sandusky with a major's commission. 

The defence of Fort Sandusky was not only the most brilliant achievement in the 
military life of Colonel Croghan, but formed one of the brightest epochs in the war. 
It filled the country with rejoicing, and won for its. gallant leader the warmest and 
most enthusiastic gratitude in the breasts of his countrymen. His whole force con- 
sisted of one hundred and sixty raw and inexperienced troops, with but a single 
piece of ordnance, and that only a six pounder. The force of the attack consisted 
of one thousand men, one half of them British regulars, the balance Indians, who 
had been promised free booty in case of victory, of which no one entertained a doubt. 
The whole was under the immediate command of the notorious General Proctor. 
The savages were led by the daring Tecumseh. To aid them in the assault, the 
enemy had five six pounders and a large howitzer. 

On the morning of the 4th of August, General Proctor sent into the fort a sum- 
mons to surrender, accompanied with the well understood and fiendish intimation, 
that if resistance were offered it would be impossible to restrain the savages, and 
that no quarter would be afforded in case of victory accompanying the assault. 
Unterrified by this dastardly summons. Major Croghan returned for answer, "that he 
should defend the fort to the last extremity." By the most consummate arrange- 
ments, he was able, not only to defend his post, but to carry slaughter and dismay 
into the heart of the enemy, who suddenly retreated, covered with confusion, and 
leaving behind him one hundred slain, and a large boat laden with military stores. 
Major Croghan's loss was one killed and seven slightly wounded. For this brave 
and well conducted defence, he received the thanks of Congress, and several of the 
more western states. A gold medal was also ordered to be struck commemorative 
of this gallant exploit, and he was promoted to a lieutenant colonelcy. 

During the remainder of the war. Colonel Croghan was actively engaged in the 
defence of his country, and on its close he retired to the peaceful pursuits of private 
life, bearing with him the respect and attachment of the army and his countrymen. 




HON. JACOB COLLAMER. 



JACOB COLLAMER, son of Samuel Collamer, a native of Scituate, Massa- 
chusetts, — -a soldier of the revolution, a descendant of the old Puritan stock, 
and an unquailing foe to usurpation and oppression in all its forms, going for the 
largest liberty consistent with wholesome law, — was born in Troy, New York, 
about 1790. While he was very young his father removed his family to Burlington, 
Vermont. Here he passed the years of his childhood, rendering such assistance to 
his father as he could, and catching instruction from the uncertain schools of his 
neighborhood. Being a boy of steady and industrious habits, and possessing a 
strong desire for an education, he prepared himself for college, and entered the uni 
versity, in Burlington, at an early age, and was graduated in 1810. 

On leaving college he entered upon the study of law ; but in 1812, on the dec- 
laration of war against Great Britain, he enlisted in the army, and served as a lieu- 
tenant in a company of artillery for the space of one year. His regiment was 
detailed to the frontier, and he served out his time, during which he had such a taste 
of "the beauties of war" as completely to satisfy him. At the close of the term 
/or which he enlisted, he returned to his studies, and the following year was admit- 
ted to the bar, and opened his office in Windsor county, where for thirty years he 



758 HON JACOB COLLAMER. 

practisea his profession, growing in reputation with the bar, and securing the favor 
of all his fellow-citizens. During this period he had often served in the state legis- 
lature, of which he was a prominent member and a leader of the whig party. 

In 1833, Mr. Collamer was appointed by the legislature one of the associate 
justices of the Supreme Court in Vermont, a station for which, by his learning and 
legal attainments, as well as his cool and comprehensive judgment, he was admirably 
fitted. For nine years, during which he occupied a seat on this bench, he discharged 
his duties in a firm, dignified, and acceptable manner, retiring, with much honor to 
himself and amidst the regrets of the bar, in 1842, although earnestly solicited to 
suffer himself to be put in nomination for a reelection. " While on the bench he 
was elected a member of a convention called for the purpose of revising and 
amending the constitution of the state, and it is mainly to his efforts that Vermont 
is indebted for an amendment to the constitution providing for a Senate as a coordi- 
nate branch of the law-making power, a necessary check upon legislation, which 
before was wanting." 

In 1843, Judge Collamer was elected to Congress, and took his seat in the lower 
branch of that body in the early winter of that year, representing the second con- 
gressional district of Vermont. His course in Congress gave such satisfaction to 
his constituency that he was again returned in 1844, and also in 1846. In 1848, he 
steadily resisted the solicitations of his political friends to again become a candi- 
date, and retired from public life. 

But in 1849, when General Taylor was elected to the presidency, he invited Mr. 
Collamer to a seat in his cabinet, with the commission of postmaster general. On 
the death of the president the following year, the cabinet was broken up, and he 
once more retired to his beautiful home, amidst the majestic scenery of the 
Green Mountains, where he has since resided, respected by all classes of society as 
one of its best and truest members, and a steadfast friend and promoter of edu- 
cation and good order. 

The modesty of Judge Collamer would, we know, be oflfended, if we were to 
speak, in bare justice merely, of his private life, or invade the sacredness of home, 
and we can only remark that his private life has been as unexceptionable as his pub- 
lic career has been honorable ; his integrity as a man never having been assailed, 
and the sincerity of his Christian profession never doubted. By his fidelity and in- 
dustry he has earned an enviable reputation and an ample competency, to the en- 
joyment of which, and to the choice circle of his friends and the bosom of his home, 
he has retired in the fulness of his years, being at this present time scarcely more 
than sixty years of age. 




^CZe 



STEPHEN OLIN, D. D., LL.D. 

CITEPHEN OLIN was bom in Leicester, Addison county, in the state of Ver- 
k_5 mont, on the 2d day of March, 1797. His childhood was marked by the pos- 
session of an active mind in a sound and healthy body. As he grew to maturity 
his frame developed to almost gigantic proportions. His opportunities for acquiring 
an education were such as most boys enjoy in our country villages, the common 
school and a few weeks' finish in a neighboring school of a somewhat higher grade, 
ycleped an academy. When he was about twenty he became a member of the 
freshman class in Middlebury College, in his native state. Here he gave himself up 
entirely to the acquisition of knowledge. It became a passion with him, and besides 
the ordinary routine of study he plunged into a far wider field, studying as for life, 
until he came near losing it. When the hour of his graduation came, it found him 
with the fresh bay on his brow — for he received the highest honors of his class — 
and with a constitution so neglected and shattered that his life hung in painful 
jeopardy, while disease ran riot through the whole circuit of his veins 

When Mr. Olin left college, he had resolved to adopt the profession of the law , 
and in order to recruit both his health and his finances, he determined to spend some 



760 



STEPHEN OLIN, D. D., LL. D. 



time in a more salubrious clime, and exercise his gifts at teaching. Soon after 
reaching South Carolina, he saw in the newspapers an advertisement of a newly 
projected seminary in the Abbeville district. He at once applied for the vacancy and 
obtained it ; and here is his own account of his first visit to the place : " I made 
my way up the river, to the location of the academy, which I found, to my 
astonishment, to be almost bare of houses. I saw a man at work, with his coat off 
and his shirt sleeves rolled up, whom I found to be a trustee of the institution. On 
inquiring where it was, I was pointed to a log cabin. I began in it. The door was 
hung on a couple of sticks, and the windows were miserable ; I drew my table to the 
wall, where I was supplied with light that came in between the logs." 

It was while engaged in this school, that Mr. Olin underwent that great change 
which altered the whole destinies of his life, and gave to the American pulpit one of 
its brightest ornaments. When he commenced his school he was an avowed unbe- 
liever. The rules of the seminary required that its services should be commenced 
daily with prayer. " Looking upon this exercise as merely an introductory ceremony, 
with no other importance than its influence on the decorum of the school, he at- 
tempted its performance ; the incompatibility of his conduct with his opinions soon, 
however, troubled his conscience ; he was induced to examine the evidences of 
Christianity, and in a few months was praying in earnest, a humble believer in the 
faith he had rejected. The effect of his new convictions was profound — they im- 
bued his entire character.*' 

After finishing his engagement at Abbeville, Mr. Olin decided to study for the 
ministry, and devoted himself to the necessary preparation with characteristic zeal. 
He joined the Methodist Episcopal Church, and by it was licensed to preach. In 
1824, he united with the South Carolina annual conference, and was appointed to 
the city of Charleston, to which station he was reappointed the next year; but ill 
health interrupted his labors repeatedly during these two years. 

" In 1826, he was left without an appointment, that he might seek relief in rest. 
At the next session of the conference he retired to the ranks of the ' Supernumera- 
ries,' and in 1828 located. In 1830, he was elected professor of English literature 
in the University of Georgia, though his health was hardly adequate to the duties 
of the chair. In 1832, he was received into the Georgia conference, but continued 
his connection with the university. In 1833, he was appointed president of Ran- 
dolph Macon College, Virginia, in which he remained, with high reputation but suf- 
fering health, till 1837, when he left this country for Europe, hoping to find improve- 
ment in foreign travel. In 1840, he returned to the United States, and in 1842, was 
elected president of the Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, in which office 
he continued until his death, August 16, 1851." 

For most of the above we are indebted to the " National Magazine," and for the 
following brief analysis of the character of Dr. Olin, to the " Methodist Quarterly." 

" Comprehensiveness, combined with energy of thought, was his chief character- 
istic; under the inspiration of the pulpit it often became sublime — we were about 
to say godlike. We doubt whether any man of our generation has had more power 
in the pulpit than Stephen Olin ; and this power was in spite of very marked 
oratorical defects. While you saw that there was no trickery of art about Dr. Olin. 
you felt that a mighty, a resistless mind was struggling with yours. You were over- 
whelmed — your reason with argument, your heart with emotion." 




REV. JOHN 0. CHOULES, D. D. 



JOHN OVERTON CHOULES, D. D., pastor of the North Baptist Church, 
Newport, Rhode Island, and one of the most widely-known clergymen in New 
England, is an Englishman by birth ; but has for so many years resided in this, the 
country of his adoption, as to become thoroughly identified with its interests and its 
institutions. He was born in the city of Bristol, a place famous for having produced 
many eminent men— John Cabot, the discoverer of Newfoundland, Chatterton, 
Southey, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and others of almost equal note having drawn their 
first breaths within its precincts. Bristol, however, though it has produced many 
eminent men, never sustained one ; and it is little wonder, therefore, that all its sons 
of genius should have gladly turned their backs on it. 

Dr. Choules, having determined to devote himself to the Christian ministry, — a 
profession for which his popular talents eminently qualified him, — entered the Bristol 
Theological Academy, then presided over by the Rev. Dr. Ryland. Here he became 
acquainted with the celebrated Robert Hall, and John Foster, the author of the well- 
known Essays, as well as with many of his fellow-students who have since become 
famous, including Dr. Harris, the author of Mammon, Dr. Price, editor of the Eclectic 
Review, and others of a similar high standing. 



762 JOHN OVERTON CHOULES, D.D 

Dr. Choules, having decided to settle in this country, quitted England soon after 
the conclusion of his collegiate studies, and became successively pastor of churches 
in Buffalo, New York, New Bedford, Newport, Jamaica Plain, (near Boston,) and 
finally he again removed to Newport, where he is now settled. As a preacher he i? 
highly esteemed. His sermons are argumentative, practical, and unmistakably the 
compositions of one who has drank deeply from those " pure wells of English unde- 
filed," the works of the old divines. There is no surface work, no thin plating of 
gold leaf over a mass of base metal ; all is sterling and of the true mintage. His 
extensive and enlarged knowledge of the world stands him in good stead in the sacred 
desk. Delivered, as his discourses are, with great fervor and power, they seldom fail 
of making deep impressions ; and the prosperity of his church is the best proof of his 
endeavors to promote the spiritual prosperity of his people. 

Dr. Choules is an author of considerable repute and a thorough scholar. He has 
edited, with great ability, Neal's History of the Puritans, and made considerable 
additions to Hinton's History of the United States. After visiting Europe in 1851 
with some pupils, he, in conjunction with them, wrote a very popular work, entitled 
*' Young Americans Abroad," which forms one of the best guide books for European 
travel ex'^ant. Since then he has revisited Europe, having made one of the party in 
IVIr. Vanderbilt's yacht; and " The Cruise of the North Star" forms Dr. Choules's 
last contribiitioii to literature. 

Perhaps there is no more profound bibliographical scholar in America than Dr. 
Choules. His library is an exceedingly valuable one, and it formed the subject of a 
remarkably able and interesting article that a year or two since appeared in the 
Knickerbocker Magazine, entitled ^' Hours in a New England Library," by Mr. John 
Ross Dix, the well-known author of " Pen and Ink Sketches." The doctor was one 
of Daniel Webster's intimate friends ; and indeed there are few of our great men 
whom he does not reckon among his acquaintance. 

We may say, in conclusion, that Dr. Choules has edited magazines and religious 
newspapers, and that to his careful teachings have been intrusted the sons of some 
of the first men in our community. Ever anxious to benefit those who require aid, 
he has, times without number, opened his purse and used his influence to assist 
struggling talent. No one who needed his assistance ever applied in vain for it. 
In his own neighborhood he is universally beloved, and wherever his name is men- 
tioned it commands respect and esteem. 




WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT, LL. D. 

FOR every department of science and the arts, nature requires peculiar gifts. It 
is rare we see combined in any one man all the elements of genius and great- 
ness—occasionally we see one that can play an indifferent hand at all the games of 
life If a man be remarkably gifted in any one thing, — painting, music, poetry, 
history, trade, or lingual acquisitions, — he is generally fit for little besides. In this 
way, by devoting their particular talent to the subject peculiarly adapted to it, we 
have' a few great men, whose concentrating genius casts its illuminations into one 
strong focus of light to reveal the hidden riches of knowledge or art. 

In the department of history, few jnen rank higher than William Hickling 
Prescott, the renowned American historian. His faultless diction, the very essence 
of poetry, covers the dry angles of chronology and musty records with a robe of 
grace and beauty which makes the plainest and dryest facts of history attractive, 
and appeals irresistibly to him who follows in the flowery paths he opens before 
him, making the author at once his friend. Nor does the poetry of its outward 
adorning weaken at all one's faith in the honest truthfulness of the narrative, for he 
feels that he is safe in the company of one whose magic wand converts what has 
60 long remained as merely the catacombs of the past, filled with dead men's bones, 



764 WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT, LL. D 

into the real action of living men and women, who pass before us, veritable actors 
in the scenes he so bewitchingly describes. 

William H. Prescott was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1796. His father 
was an able lawyer and judge, who was the son of that Prescott whose name is 
forever associated with " Bunker Hill," as the fearless leader of that brave band who 
opened the drama of our revolution so gallantly on that bloody height. His father 
removed to Boston when he was but twelve years of age. Here the opportunities 
for education, for which the metropolis of New England is noted, were faithfully 
improved by the embryo historian. In 1811, he entered Harvard College, at Cam- 
bridge. Although it was while in college that the great affliction of his life befell 
him, yet he was graduated with a high standard of excellence in 1814, and entered 
at once upon a preparation for the profession of his choice, and the same in which 
his father had already distinguished himself. But finding that his sight Was en- 
tirelv failing him, and that he received no benefit from the advice of American phy- 
sicians, he resolved to try the advantages of travel and European medical skill. 
For two years he travelled over Europe, visiting England, France, Germany, and 
Italy, consulting the best oculists in London and Paris. Alas ! aU was useless, and 
he returned once more to his beloved Boston in utter darkness. 

But his was no desponding spirit, and with a cheerful heart he resolved that the 
inner perceptions of his mind should suffer no injury from the darkening of the win- 
dows of his body. He determined to become a historian in the best sense of the 
term. Cheerfully he devoted ten years of his young life to the preparation of so great 
a work, travelling and studying the best models, cultivating his taste and style, until 
he felt competent to commence his task. Then for ten more years he labored, toil- 
ingly mousing among the musty records of the past for the materials of the first great 
work of his life. In 1838, at the age of forty-two, he took his place as an author 
before the world, and published, simultaneously at Boston and London, his " History 
of Ferdinand and Isabella." This settled his claims as a writer of history, and his 
work was received in America and in Europe with the highest applause. It has 
run through many editions, and has been translated into nearly all the languages of 
Europe. In 1843, his second great work, " The Conquest of Mexico," was given 
to the world. It was received with equal demonstrations of delight and honor. 
The same may be said of his " Conquest of Peru," which was published in 1847. 
It is understood that he is now engaged in writing the " History of Philip II." 

Mr. Prescott has earned a rich fame, and will carry with him through life the 
blessings of millions, whose hearts have been made glad, and whose minds have 
been strengthened, by the perusal of his beautiful productions. Nearly every literary 
society has honored him with a membership, and Oxford has conferred on him the 
title of doctor of laws. 




HON. CHARLES G. ATHERTON. 



CHARLES G. ATHERTON was the son of Hon. C. H. Atherton, of Am- 
herst, New Hampshire, a man of considerable eminence and influence, a law- 
yer by profession, and often elected to offices of trust and honor by his fellow-citizens, 
and was born in that town in 1804. His early education was received at home. 
His mother, a woman of uncommon gifts and piety, the daughter of the late Hon. 
Christopher Tappan, of Hampton, New Hampshire, assumed the sole charge of her 
son, and taught him the rudiments of the English, as well as of the Latin, tongues. 

When of a suitable age to be sent from home, he went to the academy at Lan- 
caster, Massachusetts, at that time a school of much celebrity, and under the charge 
of Jared Sparks, since become renowned for his biographical labors in American 
nistory, and recently the popular head of Harvard University. Here he remained 
until 1817, when, losing his excellent mother, he returned to his home, and finished 
his preparation for college in his father's office, under direction of Joseph Willard, 
Esq., then a student at law with his father. 

In 1818, Mr. Atherton entered Harvard University, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
as freshman, and after pursuing his regular course, he was graduated in 1822, and 
entered immediately on the study of the law, in his father's office, at Amherst, New 



766 HON. CHARLES G. ATHERTON. 

Hampshire. After due preparation, in 1825, he was admitted to the bar, and opened 
an office in Dunstable, New Hampshire. [In 1836, the name of this town was 
chano-ed to Nashua, and in 1842, as the result of an absurd quarrel Letwcen the in- 
habitants who dwelt on different sides of the stream which separated the village, it 
was divided into two towns, Nashua and Nashville ; but by a recent act of the 
les^islature the twain have been reunited, under a city charter, bearing the name of 
Nashua.] Here, for the space of four years, he assiduously applied himself to the 
duties of his profession, and had the satisfaction of finding the field of his business 
widely extending, and his fame as a lawyer rapidly rising at the bar of his native 
state. 

Mr. Atherton's political education was acquired in the whig school, his father 
being of the old federal school of Washington, Hamilton, and Jay ; but when he 
came to act for himself, he saw fit to adopt the democratic side of politics, and from 
that day to this has been a consistent and unswerving member of the democratic 
party. In 1829, he was nominated by that party as candidate for representative to 
the state legislature, but failed of his election, the whig party being dominant at 
that time. In 1830, however, he was again put in nomination for the same office, 
and this time was elected. The two following years he suffered defeat, and was 
chosen clerk of the Senate for both these years. 

In 1833, Mr. Atherton was reelected to the House of Representatives, and was 
immediately called on to preside over the deliberations of that body, at the early 
age of twenty-nine. He was reelected in 1834, '35, and '36, being every year chosen 
speaker, an office which he filled with great dignity and impartiality, as well as with 
entire acceptance to the house. 

In 1837, Mr. Atherton's sphere of duty was transferred to the United States 
House of Representatives, holding his seat until the autumn of 1842, when he was 
elected to the United States Senate for six years, and took his seat in that august 
body in the spring of 1843. Having served out his term with entire acceptance to 
his constituency in the Granite State, as well as to the party generally in the country, 
he retired to Nashua in 1849, and engaged in the active duties of his profession, 
where he has acquired considerable celebrity as a sound lawyer and able advocate. 

In 1852, Mr. Atherton was elected once more to a seat in the upper branch of 
Congress, and took his seat there on the 4th of last March, where he has five more 
vears of public service to render before the term expires for which he was elected. 
Being in the early prime of life, not having yet reached his first half century, a pe- 
riod at which most men have but fairly commenced their public career, we may 
well expect that he will yet render much important service to his native state and 
to his country. 

Postscript. — While this volume is going through the press, the brilliant career of 
this distinguished politician has been arrested by death. He d,ed at Nashua, New 
Hampshire, on the 15th of November, 1853, in his fiftieth year. 







DANIEL WEBSTER. 



DANIEL WEBSTER was bom in the small town of Salisbury, New Hamp- 
shire, on the 18th of January, 1782. His father was a hardy New England 
farmer, dwelling in a rugged climate, and extracting from a cold and reluctant soil 
the maintenance of a large and growing family. Daniel, as soon as he was old 
enough, shared the arduous duties of the farm, getting his education from the winter 
school which was situated two and a half miles from his home. Possessed of a 
remarkable memory and a decided aptness to learn, he read every thing that fell in 
his way, and, before he was fourteen, could repeat by heart several considerable vol- 
umes of poetry. About this time he entered Phillips Academy, at Exeter, New 
Hampshire, then under the charge of the venerable Dr. Abbot, and^for whom Mr. 
Webster ever retained the profoundest respect and esteem. After studying the 
classics under Rev. Dr. Woods, of Boscawen, New Hampshire, he entered Dart- 
mouth College, at Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1797, then fifteen years old. He 
passed through college without any special promise of his future greatness, if we 
except that close and severe attention to the matter in hand, for which he was so 
remarkable throughout his long and eventful life. 

Deciding upon the law as his future field o^ 'labor, he read a while in the office of 



768 DA.NiEL WEBSTER. 

the village lawyer in his native town, and completed his legal course under the eye 
of Hon. Ciiristopher Gore, of Boston. In March, 1805, he was admitted to the 
Suffolk bar. Not ambitious of city practice, however, he opened an office in Bos- 
cawen, and after a while removed to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1807, in 
which year he was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of New Hampshire. 
He resided in Portsmouth for nine years, in which time he established his reputation 
as a sound lawyer and an able advocate. 

In 1813, Mr. Webster was elected to a seat in the national House of Represen- 
tatives ; and here his public life dates its commencement. He entered Congress 
during the most exciting period, — just after the declaration of war against England, 
— and found there a brilliant array of talent. Henry Clay was in the speaker's 
chair, and around him sat Calhoun, Forsyth, Grundy, Pickering, and others, whose 
names form a brilliant diadem of talent and patriotism. Mr. Webster delivered his' 
maiden speech in June. It took Congress and the country by surprise, and at once 
marked him as the great leader of his party in that branch of Congress. His 
speeches on the several important bills discussed in that body, as Mr. Everett de- 
clared, " raised him to the first rank as a debater," and as Mr. Lowndes remarked. 
" The north had not his equal, nor the south his superior." 

In 1814, Mr. Webster was reelected to the same seat, and at the close of the ses- 
sion he devoted himself assiduously to the practice' of his profession. In 1816, he 
removed to Boston. The year following he was retained in the celebrated case of 
the corporation of Dartmouth College against the State of New Hampshire, in which 
he displayed an amount of legal knowledge which surprised his friends even, and 
won for the corporation a favorable decision. 

Our limits forbid our following the proud career of Daniel Webster in detail. Jn 
1821, he was elected a member of the convention called to revise the constitution 
of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ; and, in 1822, he was once more sent to 
Congress. In 1824, he was reelected by an almost unanimous vote to the same 
nouse. In 1826, he was elected to the Senate of the United States, but on account 
of a severe domestic affliction he did not take his seat until the autumn of 1828 ; 
holding that post and making it honorable for twelve years, during the administra- 
tions of Jackson and Van Buren. In 1830, his great speech against Hayne was 
delivered. In 1839, he made a short tour of Europe, where he was received as be- 
came his great fame. In 1841, he was made secretary of state under Mr. Tyler, in 
which office he successfully negotiated and concluded the famous treaty touching the 
north-eastern boundary question. On the accession of Mr. Polk to the presidency, he 
was again returned to the Senate of the United States, and retained his seat in that 
body until the death of General Taylor. Mr. Fillmore succeeded to the office of 
chief magistrate in virtue of his position as Vice President. He immediately called 
Mr. Webster to the post of secretary of state. This office he held up to the hour 
of his death, which occurred at Marshfield, on the 24th of October, 1852. 

Mr. Webster was twice married, and had several children, only one of whom sur- 
vives. He lost one son in the Mexican war. Besides his official duties, he was often 
occupied with important law questions, and delivered many public addresses on 
important occasions, by invitation of various societies. It is too soon to write his 
eulogy, or speak freely of his political life. It must be left to the next generation. to 
do justice to the character of Daniel Webster. 



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